i837 


AN 


ORATION 


DELiTKRED 


BEFORE     THE     INHABITANTS 


THE     TOWN     OF     NEWBURYPORT,        * 


AT   THEIR    REQUEST, 
OV 

THE   SIXTY-FIRST  ANNIYERSARY 

or 

THE    DECLARATION    OF    INDEPENDEiVCE, 

JJtlls    4t5,    1837. 


BY     JOHN    QUIACY     ADAMS. 


m 


"  Say  yg  not,  A  Conf«d<iracy,  to  all  them  to  whom  this  people  shall  say 
A  Confederacy;  neither  fear  ya   their  fear,  ncr  l^  afrsid.'        liAiAH,  8,  IS. 


NEWBURYPORT: 

CHARLES    WHIPPLE 

1837. 


Nbwburtpobt,  Julj  10,   1837. 

Hov.  /oM»  QciwcT  Adams  — 

Dear  Sir,  —  The  undersigned,  a  Committee  of  Arrangements, 
appointed  by  the  T©wn  of  Newburyport,  to  conduct  the  lato  cel- 
ebration of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States,  respectfully 
request  you,  in  behalf  of  the  Town,  to  furnish  for  publication  a 
copy  of  the  able  and  eloquent  Oration  delivered  by  you  in  Ne#r- 
buryport,  on  that  day. 

We  have  the  honor  to  be. 

Your  obedient  servants, 

SAMUEL    T.    DEFOBD, 
THOMAS    DAVIS, 
JOHN    BRADBURY, 
EBEN.    D.    PETTINOmLL, 
EDWARD    BURRILL. 


QuiNCY,  nth  July,  1837. 

MxfiSRB.  Samuel  T.  DeFord,  Edward  Burrill,  John  Bradbury,  Thomas 
Davis,  and  Ebenezer  D.  Pettingell,  Committee  of  Arrangements  for 
the  celebration  of  the  eixty-first  Anniversary  of  National  Independenc*  at 
JNewburyport. 

Fellow  Citizens '—  I  cheerfully  furnish  a  copy  of  the  Oration 
prepared  at  the  invitation  of  the  inhabitants  of  Newbury  port,  for 
their  celebration  of  the  recent  anniversary  of  our  National  Inde- 
pendence. To  avoid  trespassing  too  much  upon  their  time,  some 
parts  of  it  were  omitted  in  the  delivery.  I  avail  myself  of  this 
occasion  to  repeat  to  you,  gentlemen,  and  through  you  to  all  the 
inhabitants  of  the  town,  my  thanks  for  the  kind  reception  they 
were  pleased  to  give  me,  and  for  the  indulgent  hearing  of  that 
pcwtion  of  them  which  composed  the  auditory  on  that  day. 
I  am,  with  great  respect,  Fellow  Citizens, 
Your  grateful  friend, 

JOHN    QUINCY    ADAMS. 


ORATION. 


Why  is  it,  Friends  and  Fellow  Citizens,  that  you 
are  here  assembled  ?     Why  is  it,  that,  entering  upon  the 
sixty-second  year  of  our  national  existence,  you  have 
honored  with  an  invitation  to  address  you  from  this  place, 
a  fellow  citizen  of  a  former  age,  bearing  in  the  records  of 
his  memory,  the  warm  and  vivid  affections  which  attach- 
ed him,  at  the  distance  of  a  full  half  century,  to  your 
town,  and  to  your  forefathers,  then  the  cherished  asso- 
ciates of  his  youthful  days  7    Why  is  it  that,  next  to  the 
birth  day  of  the  Saviour  of  the  World,  your  most  joyous 
and  most  venerated  festival  returns  on  this  day  ?  — And 
why  is  it  that,  among  the  swarming  myriads  of  our  pop- 
ulation, thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  among  us,  ab- 
staining, under  the  dictate  of  religious  principle,  from  the 
commemoration  of  that  birth-day  of  Him,  who  brought 
life  and  immortality  to  light,  yet  unite  with  all  their  breth- 
ren of  this  community,  year  after  year,  in  celebrating  this, 
the  birth- day  of  the  nation  ? 

Is  it  not  that,  in  the  chain  of  human  events,  the  birth- 
day of  the  nation  is  indissolubly  linked  with  the  birth-day 
of  the  Saviour?  That  it  forms  a  leading  event  i^  the 
progress  of  the  gospel  d^^j^fgatm  ^    Is  it  not  that  the 


.D^<'l3raii'oiV'bf  fadepeTLdence  first  organized  the  social 
compact  on  the  foundation  of  the  Redeemer's  mission 
upon  earth  1  That  it  laid  the  comer  stone  of  human 
government  upon  the  first  precepts  of  Christianity,  and 
gave  to  the  world  the  first  irrevocable  pledge  of  the  fulfil- 
ment of  the  prophecies,  announced  directly  from  Heaven 
at  the  birth  of  the  Saviour  and  predicted  by  the  greatest 
of  the  Hebrev/  prophets  six  hundred  years  before  1 

Cast  your  eyes  backvvards  upon  the  progress  of  time, 
sixty-one  years  from  this  day  ;  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
horrors  and  desolations  of  civil  war,  you  behold  an  as- 
sembly of  Planters,  Shopkeepers  and  Lav/yers,  the  Rep- 
resentatives of  the  People  of  thirteen  EngUsh  Colonies 
in  North  America,  sitting  in  the  City  of  Philadelphia. 
These  fifty-five  men,  on  that  day,  unanimously  adopt  and 
publish  to  the  world,  a  state  paper  under  the  simple  title 
of  'A  Declaration/ 

The  object  of  this  Declaration  was  two-fold. 

First,  to  proclaim  the  People  of  the  thirteen  United 
Colonies,  ons  People,  and  in  their  name,  and  by  their 
authority,  to  dissolve  the  political  bands  which  had  con- 
nected them  with  another  People,  that  is,  the  People  of 
Great  Britain. 

Secondly,  to  assume,  in  the  name  of  this  one  People, 
of  the  thirteen  United  Colonies,  among  the  powers  of  the 
earth,  the  separate  and  equal  station,  to  which  the  Laws 
of  Nature,  and  of  Nature's  God,  entitled  them. 

With  regard  to  the  first  of  these  purposes,  the  Decla- 
ration alleges  a  decent  respect  to  the  opinions  of  man- 
kind, as  requiring  that  the  one  people,  separating  them- 
selves from  another,  should  declare  the  causes,  which 
impel  them  to  the  separation.  —  The  specification  of 
these  causes,  and  the  conclusion  resulting  from  them, 
constitute  the  whole  paper. 


The  Declaration  was  a  manifesto,  issued  from  a  de- 
cent respect  to  the  opinions  of  mankind,  to  justify  the 
People  of  the  North  American  Union,  for  their  voluntary 
reparation  from  the  People  of  Great  Britain,  by  alleging 
the  causes  which  rendered  this  separation  necessary. 

The  Declaration  was,  thus  far,  merely  an  occasional 
state  paper,  issued  for  a  temporary  purpose,  to  justify, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  a  People,  in  revolt  against  their 
acknowledged  Sovereign,  for  renouncing  their  allegiance 
to  him,  and  dissolving  their  poUtical  relations  with  the 
nation  over  which  he  presided. 

For  the  second  object  of  the  Declaration,  the  assump- 
tion among  the  powers  of  the  earth  of  the  separate  and 
equal  station,  to  which  the  Laws  of  Nature  and  of  Na- 
ture's God  entitled  them,  no  reason  was  assigned,  —  no 
justification  was  deemed  necessary. 

The  first  and  chief  purpose  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence was  interesting  to  those  by  whom  it  was  issu- 
ed, to  the  people,  their  constituents  in  whose  name  it  was 
promulgated,  and  to  the  world  of  mankind  to  whom  it 
was  addressed,  only  during  that  period  of  time,  in  which 
the  independence  of  the  newly  constituted  people  was 
contested,  by  the  wager  of  battle.  Six  years  of  War, 
cruel,  unrelenting,  merciless  War,  —  War,  at  once 
civil  and  foreign,  were  waged,  testing  the  firmness  and 
fortitude  of  the  one  People,  in  their  inflexible  adherence 
to  that  separation  from  the  other,  which  their  Represen- 
tatives in  Congress  had  proclaimed.  By  the  signature 
of  the  Preliminary  Articles  of  Peace,  on  the  30th  of  Nov- 
ember 1782,  their  warfare  was  accomplished,  and  the 
Spirit  of  the  Lord,  with  a  voice  reaching  to  the  latest  of 
future  ages,  might  have  exclaimed,  like  the  sublime  pro- 
phet of  Israel,  —  Comfort  ye,  comfort  ye  my  people, 
saith  your  God."^ 

*  Isaiah  40  :  1 . 


But,  from  that  day  forth,  the  separation  of  the  one  Peo- 
ple from  the  other  was  a  solitary  fact  in  their  common 
history  ;  a  mere  incident  in  the  progress  of  human  events, 
not  more  deserving  of  special  and  annual  commemoration 
by  one  of  the  separated  parts,  than  by  the  other.  Still 
less  were  the  causes  of  the  separation  subjects  for  joyous 
retrospection  by  either  of  the  parties.  —  The  causes  were 
acts  of  misgovemment  committed  by  the  King  and  Par- 
liament of  Great  Britain.  In  the  exasperation  of  the  mo- 
meat  they  were  alleged  to  be  acts  of  personal  tyranny 
and  oppression  by  the  King.  George  the  third  was  held 
individually  responsible  for  them  all.  The  real  and  most 
cHl|)able  oppressor,  the  British  Parliament,  was  not  even 
named,  in  the  bill  of  pains  and  penalties  brought  against 
the  monarch.  —  They  were  described  only  as  "  others" 
combined  with  him  ;  and,  after  a  recapitulation  of  all  the 
grievances  with  which  the  Colonies  had  been  afflicted  by 
usuq^ed  British  Legislation,  the  dreary  catalogue  was 
closed  by  the  sentence  of  unqualified  condemnation,  that 
a  prince,  whose  character  v/as  thus  marked  by  every  act 
which  might  define  a  tyrant,  was  unworthy  to  be  the 
ruler  of  a  free  people. 

The  King,  thus  denounced  by  a  portion  of  his  subjects, 
casting  off  their  allegiance  to  his  crown,  has  long  since 
gone  to  his  reward.  His  reign  was  long,  and  disastrous 
to  his  people,  and  his  life  presents  a  melancholy  picture 
of  the  wretchedness  of  all  human  grandeur ;  but  we  may 
now,  with  the  candour  of  impartial  history,  ackaowledge 
that  he  was  not  a  tyrant.  His  personal  character  was 
endowed  with  many  estimable  qualities.  His  intentions 
were  good  ;  his  disposition  benevolent ;  his  integrity  un- 
sullied; his  domestic  virtues  exemplary;  his  religious 
impressions  strong  and  conscientious ;  his  private  morals 
pure  ;  his  spirit  munificent,  in  the  promotion  of  the  arts, 


literature  and  sciences  ;  and  his  most  fervent  wishes  de- 
voted to  the  welfare  of  his  people.     But  he  was  born  to 
he  a  hereditary  king,  and  to  exemplify  in  his  life  and  his- 
tory the  irremediable  vices  of  that  poUtical  institution, 
which  substitutes  birth  for  merit,  as  the  only  qualification 
for  attaining  the  supremacy  of  powder.     George  the  third 
beheved  that  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  had  the 
right  to  enact  law^s  for  the  government  of  the  people 
of  the  British    Colonies    in  all  cases.       An    immense 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  British  Islands  believed  the 
same.     That  people  were  exclusively  the  constituents 
of  the  British  House  of  Commons,  where  the  project  of 
taxing  the  people  of  the  Colonies  for  a  revenue  originat- 
ed ;  and  where  the  People  of  the  Colonies  w^ere  not  rep- 
resented.    The  purpose  of  the  project  was  to  alleviate 
the  burden  of  taxation  bearing  upon  the  people  of  Bri- 
tain, by  levying  a  portion  of  it  upon  the  people  of  the 
Colonies.  —  At  the  root  of  all  this  there  was  a  plausible 
theory  of  sovereignty,  and  unlimited  powder  in   Parlia- 
ment, conflicting  with  the  vital  principle  of  English  Free- 
dom, that  taxation  and  representation  are  inseparable, 
and  that  taxation  without  representation  is  a  violation  of 
the  right  of  property.     Here  was  a  conflict  betw^een  tw  o 
first  principles  of  government,  resulting  from  a  defect  in 
the  British  Constitution:   the  principle  that  sovereign 
power  in  human  Government  is  in  its  nature  unlimited; 
and  the  principle  that  property  can  lawfully  be  taxed  on- 
ly with  the  consent  of  its  owner.      Now  these  two  prin- 
ciples, carried  out  into  practice,  are  utterly  irreconcil cable 
with  each  other.      The  lawyers  of  Great  Britain  held 
^hem  both  to  be  essential  principles  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution. —  In  their  practical  application,  the  King  and 
Parliament  and  people  of  Great  Britain,  appealed  for  the 
right  to  tax  the  Colonies  to  the  unlimited  and  illimitable 


10 


sovereignty  of  the  Parliament.  —  The  Colonists  appeal- 
ed to  the  natural  right  o^ property,  and  the  articles  of  the 
Great  Charter.  The  collision  in  the  application  of  these 
tvwo  principles  was  the  primitive  cause  of  the  severance 
of  the  North  American  Colonies,  from  the  British  Empire. 
The  grievances  alleged  in  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
dence were  all  secondary  causes,  amply  sufficient  to 
justify  before  God  and  man  the  separation  itself;  and 
that  resolution,  to  the  support  of  which  the  fifty-five  Rep- 
resentatives of  the  One  People  of  the  United  Colonies 
pledged  their  fives,  their  fortunes,  and  their  sacred  hon- 
our, after  passing  through  the  fiery  ordeal  of  a  six  years 
war,  was  sanctioned  by  the  God  of  Battles,  and  by  the 
unquahfied  acknowledgment  of  the  defeated  adversary. 

This,  my  countrymen,  was  the  first  and  immediate 
purpose  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  was  to 
justify  before  the  tribunal  of  public  opinion,  throughout 
the  world,  the  solemn  act  of  separation  of  the  one  people 
from  the  other. 

Bait  this  is  not  the  reason  for  which  you  are  here  as- 
sdnbled.  The  question  of  right  and  wrong  involved  in 
the  resolution  of  North  American  Independence  was  of 
transcendant  importance  to  those  who  were  actors  in  the 
scene.  A  question  of  life,  of  fortune,  of  fame,  of  eter- 
nal w^elfare.  To  you,  it  is  a  question  of  nothing  more 
than  historical  interest.  The  separation  itself  was  a  pain- 
ful and  distressing  event  ;  a  measure  resorted  to  by  your 
forefathers  with  extreme  reluctance,  and  justified  by 
them,  in  their  own  eyes,  only  as  a  dictate  of  necessity. — 
They  had  glorie'd  in  the  name  of  Britons  :  It  was  a  pass- 
port of  honour  throughout  the  civilized  v.orld.  They 
were  now  to  discard  it  forever,  with  ail  its  tender  and  all 
its  generous  sympathies,  for  a  name  obscure  and  un- 
known, the  honest  fame  of  which  was  to  be  achieved  by 


11 

the  gallantry  of  their  own  exploits  and  the  wisdom  of 
their  own  counsels. 

But,  with  the  separation  of  the  one  people  from  the 
other,  was  indissolubly  connected  another  event.  They 
had  been  British  Colonies,  —  distinct  and  separate  sub- 
ordinate portions  of  one  great  community.  In  the  strug- 
gle of  resistance  against  one  common  oppressor,  by  a 
moral  centripetal  impulse  they  had  spontaneously  coale»- 
c^d  into  One  People,  They  declare  themselves  such  in 
eg^press  terms  by  this  paper.  —  The  members  of  the 
Congi-ess,  who  signed  their  names  to  the  Declaration, 
style  themselves  the  Representatives,  not  of  the  separate 
Ck)lonies,but  of  the  United  States  of  America  m  Congresrs 
assembled.  No  one  Colony  is  named  in  the  Declaration, 
nor  is  there  any  thing  on  its  face,  indicating  from  which  of 
the  Colonies,  any  one  of  the  signers  was  delegated  They 
proclaim  the  separation  of  one  people  from  another.  — 
They  affirm  the  right  of  the  People,  to  institute,  alter,  and 
abolish  their  Government :  —  and  their  final  language  rs, 
**  we  do,  in  the  name,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  good 
People  of  tliese  Colonies,  solemnly  publish  and  declaee 
fhat  these  United  Colonies,  are  and  of  right  ought  to  b« 
Free  and  Ij^dependent  States."  The  Declaratwn 
was  not,  that  each  of  the  States  was  separately  Free  and 
Independent,  but  that  such  was  their  united  condition. 
And  so  essential  was  their  union,  both  in  principle  and  in 
fact,  to  their  freedom  and  independence,  that,  had  one  of 
the  Colonies  seceded  from  the  rest,  and  undertaken  to 
declare  herself  free  and  independent,  she  could  have 
maintained  neither  her  independence  nor  her  fi^e- 
dom. 

And,  by  this  paper,  this  One  People  did  notify  the 
world  of  mankmd  that  they  thereby  did  assume  among 
the  powers  of  the  earth  the  separate  and  equal  station. 


12 


to  which  the  Laws  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's  God  enti- 
tled them. 

This  was  indeed  a  great  and  solemn  event.  The  sub- 
hmest  of  the  prophets  of  antiquity  with  the  voice  of  in- 
spiration had  exclaimed,  "Who  hath  heard  such  a  thing? 
Who  hath  seen  such  things  1  Shall  the  earth  be  made  to 
bring  forth  in  one  day  1  Or  shall  a  nation  be  bom  at 
once?""^  In  the  two  thousand  five  hundred  years^  that 
had  elapsed  since  the  days  of  that  prophecy,  no  such 
event  had  occurred.  It  had  never  been  seen  before^ 
In  the  annals  of  the  human  race,  then,  for  the  first  time, 
did  one  People  announce  themselves  as  a  member  of  that 
great  community  of  the  powers  of  the  earth,  acknowl- 
edging the  obligations  and  claiming  the  rights  of  the  Laws 
of  Na^ture  and  of  Nature's  God.  The  earth  was  made 
to  bring  forth  in  one  day  !     A  Nation  was  bom  at  once  t 

Well,  hideed,  may  such  a  day  be  commemorated  by 
such  a  Nation,  from  year  to  year !  But  whether  as  a  day 
of  festivity  and  joy,  or  pi  humiUation  and  mourning,  — 
that,  fellow-citizens,  —  that, 

In  the  various  turns  of  chance  below, 
depends  not  upon  the  event  itself,  but  upon  its  conse- 
quences ;  and  after  threescore  years  of  existence,  not  so 
much  upon  the  responsibilities  of  those  who  brought  the 
Nation  forth,  as  upon  the  moral,  pohticat  and  intellectual 
character  of  the  present  generation, —  of  yourselves.  In 
the  common  intercourse  of  social  hfe,  the  birth-day  of  in- 
dividuals is  often  held  as  a  yearly  festive  day  by  them- 
selves, and  their  immediate  relatives ;  yet,  as  early  as  the 
age  of  Solomon,  that  wisest  of  men  told  the  people  of 
Jeinisalem,  that,  as  a  good  name  was  better  than  precious 
ointment,  so  the  day  of  death  was  better  than  the  day  of 
one's  birth.f 

♦Isaiah  GQ:   8.  f  Ecclesiastes  T:    U 


IS 

Are  you  then  assembled  here,  my  brethren,  children 
of  those  who  declared  your  National  Independence,  in 
sorrow  or  in  joy  ?  In  gratitude  for  blessings  enjoyed,  or 
in  affliction  for  blessings  lost  ?  In  exultation  at  the  ener- 
vgies  of  your  fathers,  or  in  shame  and  confusion  of  face  at 
y.our  ow^n  degeneracy  from  their  virtues  ?  Forgive  the 
apparent  rudeness  of  these  enquiries: — they  are  not  ad- 
dressed to  you  under  the  influence  of  a  doubt  what  your 
answer  to  them  will  be.  You  are  not  here  to  unite  in 
echoes  of  mutual  gratulation  for  the  separation  of  your 
forefathers  from  their  kindred  freemen  of  the  British  Isl- 
ands. You  are  not  here  even  to  commemorate  the  mere 
accidental  incident,  that,  in  the  annual  revolution  of  the 
earth  in  her  orbit  round  the  sun,  this  w^as  the  birth-day 
of  the  Nation.  You  are  here,  to  pause  a  moment  and  take 
breath,  in  the  ceaseless  and  rapid  race  of  time; — to  look 
back  and  forward ;  —  to  take  your  point  of  departure  from 
the  ever  memorable  transactions  of  the  day  of  which  this 
is  the  anniversary,  and  while  offering  your  tribute  of 
thanksgiving  to  the  Creator  of  all  worlds,  for  the  bounties 
of  his  Providence  lavished  upon  your  fathers  and  upon 
you,  by  the  dispensations  of  that  day,  and  while  record- 
ing with  filial  piety  upon  your  memories,  the  grateful  af- 
fections of  your  hearts  to  the  good  name,  the  sufferings, 
and  the  services  of  that  age,  to  turn  your  final  reflections 
inward  upon  yourselves,  and  to  say:  —  These  are  the 
glories  of  a  generation  past  away,  — what  are  the  duties 
which  they  devolve  upon  us  1 

The  Declaration  oflndependence,  in  announcing  to  the 
w'orld  of  mankind,  that  the  People  comprising  the  thirteen 
British  Colonies  on  the  continent  of  North  America  as- 
sumed, from  that  day,  as  One  People,  their  separate  and 
equal  station  among  the  powers  of  the  earth,  explicitly 
unfolded  the  principles  upon  which  their  national  associ- 

2 


14 


ation  had,  by  their  unanimous  consent,  ^ind  by  the  mutual 
pledges  of  their  faith,  been  formed.  It  was  an  associa- 
tion of  mutual  covenants.  Every  intelligent  individual 
niember  of  that  self-constituted  People  did,  by  his  repre- 
sentative in  Congress,  the  majority  speaking  for  the 
whole,  and  the  husband  and  parent  for  the  wife  and  child, 
bind  his  and  their  souls  to  a  promise,  appealing  to  t-he 
Supreme  Judge  of  the  world  for  the  rectitude  of  his  in- 
tentions, covenanting  with  all  the  rest  that  they  woiild 
for  life  and  death  be  faithful  members  of  that  community, 
and  bear  true  allegiance  to  that  Sovereign,  upon  the 
principles  set  forth  in  that  paper.  The  Hves,  the  for- 
tunes, and  the  honour,  of  every  free  human  being  form- 
ing a  part  of  those  Colonies,  were  pledged,  in  the  face  of 
God  and  man,  to  the  principles  therein  promulgated. 

My  countrymen! — the  exposition  of  these  principles 
will  furnish  the  solution  to  the  question  of  the  purpose 
for  which  you  arc  here  assembled. 

In  recurring  to  those  principles,  let  us  remark. 

First,  that  the  People  of  the  thirteen  Colonies  an- 
nounced themselves  to  the  world,  and  solemnly  bound 
themselves,  with  an  appeal  to  God,  to  be  One  People. 
And  this  One  People,  by  their  Representatives,  declared 
the  United  Colonies  free  and  independent  States. 

Secondly,  they  declared  the  People,  and  not  the 
Slates,  to  be  the  only  legitimate  source  of  power ;  and 
that  to  the  People  alone  belonged  the  right  to  institute, 
to  alter,  to  abolish,  and  to  re-institute  government.  And 
hence  it  follows,  that  as  the  People  of  the  separate  Colonies 
or  States  formed  only  parts  of  t\ie  fine  People  assuming 
their  station  among  the  powers  of  the  earth,  so  the  Peo- 
ple of  no  one  State  could  separate  from  the  rest,  but  by 
a  revolution,  similar  to  that  by  which  the  whole  People 
had  separated  themselves  from  the  People  of  the  British 


15 


Islands,  nor  without  the  violation  of  that  solemn  covenant, 
by  which  they  bound  themselves  to  support  and  main- 
tain the  United  Colonies,  as  free  and  independent  States. 

An  error  of  the  most  dangerous  character,  more  than 
once  threatening  the  dissolution  by  violence  of  the  Union 
itself,  has  occasionally  found  countenance  and  encourage- 
ment in  several  of  the  States,  by  an  inference  not  only 
unwarranted  by  the  language  and  import  of  the  Declara- 
tjon,  but  subversive  of  its  fundamental  principles.  This 
inference  is,  that  because  by  this  paper  the  United  Colo- 
nies were  declared  free  and  independent  States,  therefore 
each  of  the  States,  separately,  was  free,  independent  and 
^o-verc^gn.  The  pernicious  and  fatal  malignity  of  this 
doctrine  consists,  not  in  the  mere  attribution  of  sove- 
reignty to  the  separate  States ;  for  within  their  appropri- 
ate functions  and  boundaries  Xhey  are  sovereign  ; — but  in 
adopting  that  very  definition  of  sovereignty,  w^hich  had 
bewildered  the  senses  of  the  British  Parliament,  and 
which  rent  in  twain  the  Empire  ; — that  principle,  the  re- 
sistance to  which  was  the  vital  spark  of  the  American 
revolutionary  cause,  namely,  that  sovereignty  is  iden- 
tical with  unlimited  and  illimitable  power. 

The  origin  of  this  error  was  of  a  very  early  date  after 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  infusion  of  its 
spirit  into  the  Articles  of  Confederation,  first  formed  for 
the  government  of  the  Union,  was  the  seed  of  dissolu- 
tion sown  in  the  soil  of  that  compact,  which  palsied  all  its 
energies  from  the  day  of  its  birth,  and  exhibited  it  to  the 
world  only  as  a  monument  of  impotence  and  imbecility. 

The  Declaration  did  not  proclaim  the  separate  States 
free  and  independent;  much  less  did  it  announce  them 
as  sovereign  States,  or  affirm  that  they  separately  pos- 
sessed the  war-making  or  the  peace-making  power. 
The  fact  was  directly  the  reverse. 


16 


The  Declaration  was,  that  the  United  Colonies,  fortri- 
ing  one  People,  were  free  and  independent  States;  that 
they  were  absolved  from  all  allegiance  to  the  British 
Crown ;  that  all  political  cannection,  between  them  and 
the  State  of  Great  Britain,  was  and  ought  to  be  totally 
dissolved;  and  tliat  as  free  and  independent  States,  they 
had  full  power  to  levy  war,  conclude  peace,  contract 
alliances,  establish  commerce,  and  do  all  other  acts  and 
things,  which  independent  States  may  of  right  do.  But 
all  this  was  affirmed  and  declared  not  of  the  separate,  but 
of  the  United,  States.  And  so  far  was  it  from  the  inten- 
tion of  that  Congress,  or  of  the  One  People  whom  they 
represented,  to  declare  that  all  the  powers  of  sovereign- 
ty were  possessed  by  the  separate  States,  that  the  spe- 
cification of  the  several  powers  of  levying  war,  conclud- 
ing peace,  contracting  alliances,  and  establishing  com- 
merce, was  obviously  introduced  as  the  indication  o£ 
powers  exclusively  possessed  by  the  one  People  of  the 
United  States,  and  not  appertaining  to  the  People  df. 
each  of  the  separate  States.  This  distinction  was  indeed 
indispensable  to  the  necessities  of  their  condition.  The 
Declaration  was  issued  in  the  midst  of  a  war,  commenced 
by  insurrection  against  their  common  sovereign,  and  un- 
til then  raging  as  a  civil  war.  Not  the  insurrection  of 
one  of  the  Colonies;  not  the  insun-ection  of  the  organiz- 
ed government  of  any  one  of  the  Colonies ;  but  the  in- 
surrection of  the  People  of  the  whole  thirteen.  The  ia- 
surrecdon  was  one.  The  civil  war  was  one.  In  consti- 
tuting themselves  one  People,  it  could  not  possibly  be 
their  intention  to  leave  the  power  of  concluding  peace  to 
each  of  the  States  of  which  the  Union  was  composed. 
The  war  was  waged  against  all  The  war  itself  had 
united  the  inhabitants  of  the  thirteen  Colonies  into  one 
People.     The  lyre  of  Orpheus   v/as  the  standard  of  the 


17 

Union.  By  the  representatives  of  that  one  People,  and 
by  them  alone,  could  the  peace  be  concluded.  Had  the 
people  of  any  one  of  the  States  pretended  to  the  right  of 
concluding  a  separate  peace,  the  very  fact  would  have 
operated  as  a  dismemberment  of  the  Union,  and  could 
have  been  carried  into  effect  only  by  the  return  of  that 
portion  of  the  People  to  the  condition  of  Bridsh  subjects. 

Thirdly,  the  Declaration  of  Independence  announced 
the  One  People^  assuming  their  station  among  the  powers 
of" the  earth,  as  acivihzed,  religious,  and  Christian  People, 
—  acknowledging  themselves  bound  by  the  obhgations, 
and  claiming  the  rights,  to  which  they  were  endded  by 
the  laws  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's  God, 

They  had  formed  a  subordinate  portion  of  an  Europe- 
an Chi'istian  nation,  in  the  condition  of  Colonies.  The 
laws  of  social  intercourse  between  sovereign  commun- 
ities constitute  the  laws  of  nations,  all  derived  from 
three  sources  :  —  the  laws  of  nature,  or  in  other  words 
the  dictates  of  justice  ;  usages,  sanctioned  by  custom  ; 
and  treaties,  or  national  covenants.  Superadded  to 
these,  the  Christian  nations,  between  themselves,  admit, 
with  various  latitudes  of  interpretation,  and  litde  consist- 
ency of  pracdce,  the  laws  of  humanity  and  mutual  be- 
nevolence taught  in  the  gospel  of  Christ.  The  Europe- 
an Colonies  in  America  had  all  been  setded  by  Christian 
nations;  and  the  first  of  them,  settled  before  the  reforma- 
tion of  Luther,  had  sought  their  jusdfication  for  taking 
possession  of  lands  inhabited  by  men  of  another  race,  in 
a  grant  of  authority  from  the  successor  of  Saint'  Peter  at 
Rome,  for  converting  the  natives  of  the  country  to  the 
Christian  code  of  religion  and  morals.  After  the  reforma- 
tion, the  kings  of  England,  subsdtuting  themselves  in 
the  place  of  the  Roman  PontiiF,  as  heads  of  the  Church, 
granted  charters  for  the  same  benevolent  purposes ;  and 
as  these  colonial  establishments  successively  arose, 
worldly  purp:  \s,  the  spirit  of  adventure,  and  religious 
2* 


18 


persecution  took  their  place,  together  with  the  conver- 
sion of  the  heathen,  among  the  motives  for  the  European 
establishments  in  this  Western  Hemisphere.  Hence 
had  arisen  among  the  colonizing  nations,  a  customary 
law,  under  which  the  commerce  of  all  colonial  settle- 
ments was  confined  exclusively  to  the  metropolis  or 
mother  country.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  cast 
off  all  the  shackles  of  this  dependency.  The  United 
States  of  America  were  no  longer  Colonies.  They  w^ere 
an  independent  Nation  of  Christians,  recognizing  the 
general  principles  of  the  Europaan  law  of  nations^. 

But  to,  justify  their  separation  from  the  parent  State^ 
it  became  necessary  for  them  to  set  forth  the  wrongs 
which  they  had  endured.  Their  colonial  condition  had 
been  instituted  by  charters  from  British  kings.  These 
they  considered  as  compacts  between  the  King  as  their 
sovereign  and  them  as  his  subjects.  In  all  these  char- 
ters, there  were  stipulations  for  securing  to  the  colonists 
the  enjoyment  of  the  rights  of  natural  born  Englishmen. 
The  attempt  to  tax  them  by  Act  of  ParUament  was  a 
violation  of  their  charters.  And  as  the  Parliament,  to 
sustain  their  right  of  taxing  the  Colonies  had  appealed 
ta  the  prerogative  of  sovereign  power,  the  colonists,  to 
refute  that  claim,  after  appeahng  in  vain  tojheir  charters, 
and  to  the  Great  Charter  of  England,  were  obliged  to  re- 
sort to  the  natural  rights  of  mankind ;  — to  the  laws  of 
Nature  and  of  Nature's  God. 

And  now,  my  friends  and  fellow  citizens,  have  we  not 
reached  the  cause  of  your  assemblage  here  ?  Have  we 
not  ascended  to  the  source  of  that  deep,  intense,  and 
never-fading  interest,  which,  to  your  fathers,  from  the 
day  of  the  issuing  of  this  Declaration,  —  to  you,  on  this 
sixty-first  anniversary  after  that  event,  —  and  to  your 
children  and  theirs  of  the  fiftieth  generation,  —  haSrUiade 
and  will  continue  to  make  it  the  first  and  happiest  o€ 
festive  days  ? 


19 

In  setting  forth  the  justifying  causes  of  their  separa- 
tion from  Great  Britain,  your  fathers  opened  the  foun- 
tains of  the  great  deep.  For  the  first  time  since  thq 
creation  of  the  world,  the  act,  which  constituted  a  great! 
people,  laid  the  foundation  of  their  government  upom 
the  unalterable  and  eternal  principles  of  human  rights. 

They  were  comprized  in  a  few  short  sentences,  and  ^ 
were  delivered  with  the  unquaUfied  confidence  of  self- 
evident  truths. 

"We  hold,"  says  the  Declaration,  "these  truths  to  be 
self-evident: — that  all  men  are  created  equal;  that  thej 
are  endowed  by  their  Creator  with  certain  unalienable 
rights ;  that  among  these  are  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit 
of  happiness  ;  that  to  secure  these  rights,  governments 
are  instituted  among  men,  deriving  their  just  powers 
fi'om  the  consent  of  the  governed ;,  that  whenever  any 
form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of  these  ends, 
it  is  the  right  of  the  People  to  alter  or  to  abolish  it^  and 
to  institute  a  new  government,  laying  its  foundations  on 
such  principles,  and  organizing  its  powers  in  such  form, 
as  to  diem  shall  seem  most  likely  to  effect  their  safety 
and  happiness."  -:^-  — 

It  is  afterwards  stated  to  be  the  duty  of  the  People, 
when  their  governments  become  incorrigibly  oppressive, 
to  throw  them  off,  and  to  provide  new  guards  for  their 
future  security ;  and  it  is  alleged  that  such  was  the  cour 
dition  of  the  British  Colonies  at  that  time,  and  that  they 
were  constrained  by  necessity  to  alter  their  systems  of 
government. 

The  origin  of  lawful  government  among  men  had  formr 
ed  a  subject  of  profound  investigation  and  of  ardent  dis- 
cussion among  the  philosophers  of  ancient  Greece.  The 
theocratic  government  of  the  Hebrews  had  been  found- 
ed upon  a  covenant  between  God  and  man  ;  a  law, 
given  by  the  Creator  of  the  world,  and  solemnly  accept- 
ed by  the  people  of  Israel.     It  derived  all  its  powers, 


20 

thereforej  from  the  consent  of  the  governed,  and  gave 
the  sanction  of  Heaven  itself  to  the  principle,  that  the 
consent  of  the  governed  is  the  only  legitimate  source  of 
authority  to  man  over  man. 

But  the  history  of  mankind  had  never  before  furnished 
an  example  of  a  government  directly  and  expressly  in- 
stituted upon  this  principle.  The  associations  of  men,'- 
bearing  the  denomination  of  the  People,  had  been  vari- 
ously formed,  and  the  term  itself  was  of  very  indefinite 
signification.  In  the  most  ordinary  acceptation  of  the 
word,  dL  people,  was  understood  to  mean  a  multitude  of 
human  beings  united  under  one  supreme  government, 
and  one  and  the  same  civil  poUty.  But  the  same  term 
was  equally  applied  to  subordinate  divisions  of  the  same 
nation ;  and  the  inhabitants  of  every  province,  county, 
city,  town,  or  village,  bore  the  name,  as  habitually  as  the 
whole  population  of  a  kingdom  or  an  empire.  In  the 
theories  of  government,  it  was  never  imagined  that  the 
people  of  every  hamlet  or  subordinate  district  of  territo- 
ry should  possess  the  power  of  constituting  themselves 
an  independent  State  ;  yet  are  they  justly  entitled  to  the 
appellation  of  people,  and  to  exemption  from  all  authori- 
ty derived  from  any  other  source  than  their  own  con- 
sent, express  or  implied. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  constituted  all  the 
inhabitants  of  European  descent  in  the  thirteen  English 
Colonies  of  North  America,  one  People,  with  all  the  at- 
tributes of  rightful  sovereign  power.  They  had,  until 
then,  been  ruled  by  thirteen  different  systems  of  govern- 
ment ;  none  of  them  sovereign ;  but  all  subordinate  to 
one  sovereign,  separated  from  them  by  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  altered  these 
systems  of  government,  and  transformed  these  depend- 
ant Colonies  into  united,  free,  and  independent  States. 

The  distribution  of  the  sovereign  powers  of  govern- 
ment, between  the  body  representing  the  whole  People, 


21 


and  the  municipal  authorities  substitirted  for  the  colonial 
governments,  was  left  for  after  consideration.  The  Peo- 
ple of  each  Colony,  absolved  by  the  People  of  the  whole 
Union  from  their  allegiance  to  the  British  crown,  became 
themselves,  upon  the  principles  of  the  Declaration,  the 
sovereigns  to  institute  and  organize  new  systems  of  gov- 
ernment, to  take  the  place  of  those  which  had  been  abol- 
ished by  the  will  of  the  whole  People,  as  proclaimed  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

It  will  be  remembered,  that,  until  that  time,  the  w^hok 
movement  of  resistance  against  the  usurpations  of  the 
British  government  had  been  revolutionary,  and  there- 
fore irregular.  The  colonial  governments  were  still  un- 
der tlie  organization  of  their  charters,  except  that  of 
Massachusetts-Bay,  which  had  been  formally  vacated, 
and  the  royal  government  was  administered  by  a  military 
commander  and  regiments  of  soldiers.  The  country 
was  in  a  state  of  civil  war.  The  people  were  in  revolt, 
claiming  only  the  restoration  of  their  violated  rights  as 
subjects  of  the  British  king.  The  members  of  the  Con- 
gress had  been  elected  by  the  Legislative  assemblies  of 
the  Colonies,  or  by  self-constituted  popular  conventions 
or  assemblies,  in  opposition  to  the  Governors.  Their 
original  mission  had  been  to  petition,  to  remonstrate  ;  to 
disclaim  all  intention  or  purpose  of  independence;  to  seek, 
with  earnest  entreaty,  the  redress  of  grievances,  and  ree- 
onciliation  with  the  parent  State.  They  had  received 
no  authority,  at  their  first  appointment,  to  declare  inde- 
pendence, or  to  dissolve  the  political  connection  between 
the  Colonies  and  Great  Britain.  But  they  had  petition-^ 
ed  once  and  again,  and  their  petitions  had  been  slighted. 
They  had  remonstrated,  and  their  remonstrances  had, 
been  contemned.  They  had  disclaimed  all  intention  of 
independence,  and  their  disclaimer  had  been  despised. 


22 

They  had  finally  recommended  to  the  People  to  look  for 
their  redemption  to  themselves,  and  they  had  been  an* 
swered  by  voluntary  and  spontaneous  calls  for  indepen- 
dence. They  declared  it,  therefore,  in  the  name  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  People,  and  their  declaration  was 
confirmed  from  New-Hampshire  to  Georgia  with  one 
universal  shout  of  approbation. 

And  never,  from  that  to  the  present  day,  has  there 
beeii  one  moment  of  regret,  on  the  part  of  the  People, 
whom  they  thus  declared  independent,  at  this  mighty 
change  of  their  condition,  nor  one  moment  of  distrust,  of 
the  justice  of  that  declaration.  In  the  mysterious  ways 
of  Providence,  manifested  by  the  course  ol  human  events, 
the  feeble  light  of  reason  is  often  at  a  loss  to  discover 
the  coincidence  between  the  laws  of  eternal  justice,  and 
the  decrees  of  fortune  or  of  fate  in  the  affairs  of  men. 
In  the  corrupted  currents  of  this  world,  not  only  is  the 
race  not  always  to  the  swift,  nor  the  battle  to  the  strong,* 
but  the  heart  is  often  wrung  with  anguish  at  the  sight  of 
the  just  man  that  perisheth  in  his  righteousness,  and  of 
the  wicked  man  that  prolongeth  his  life  in  his  wicked- 
ness.f  Far  different  and  happier  is  the  retrospect  upon 
that  great  and  memorable  transaction.  Every  individual, 
whose  name  was  affixed  to  that  paper,  has  finished  his 
career  upon  earth  ;  and  who,  at  this  day  w^ould  not  deem 
it  a  blessing  to  have  had  his  name  recorded  on  that  Hst? 
The  act  of  aboHshing  the  government  under  which  they 
had  lived, — of  renouncing  and  abjuring  the  allegiaRce  by 
which  they  had  been  bound, — of  dethroning  their  sove- 
reign,  and  of  discarding  their  country  herself, — purified 
and  elevated  by  the  principles  which  they  proclaim- 
ed, and  by  the  motives  which  they  promulgated  as  their 
stimulants  to  action, — stands  recorded  in  the  annals  of  the 
*  fkclesiastes  9:11.  t  Eccl.  7  ;  15, 


23 


human  race,  as  one  among  the  brightest  achievements 
of  human  virtue : — applauded  on  earth,  ratified  and  con- 
firmed by  the  fiat  of  Heaven. 

The  principles,  thus  triumphantly  proclaimed  and  es- 
tablished, were  the  natural  and  unalienable  rights  of  man, 
and  the  supreme  authority  of  the  People,  as  the  only  le- 
gitimate source  of  power  in  the  institution  of  civil  gov- 
ernment. But  let  us  not  mistake  the  extent,  nor  turn 
our  eyes  from  the  limitations  necessary  for  the  applica- 
tion, of  the  principles  themselves.  Who  were  the  Peo- 
ple, thus  invested  by  the  laws  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's 
God,  with  sovereign  powers?  And  what  were  the  sove- 
reign powers  thus  vested  in  the  People  ? 

First,  the  whole  free  People  of  the  thirteen  United 
British  Colonies  in  North  America.  The  Declaration 
was  their  act ;  prepared  by  their  Representatives ;  in 
their  name,  and  by  their  authority.  An  act  of  the  most 
transcendant  sovereignty ;  abolishing  the  governments  of 
thirteen  Colonies  ;  absolving  their  inhabitants  from  the 
bands  of  their  allegiance,  and  declaring  the  whole  Peo- 
ple of  the  British  Islands,  theretofore  their  fellow  sub^'ects 
and  countrymen,  aliens  and  foreigners. 

Secondly,  the  free  People  of  each  of  the  thirteen  Col- 
onies, thus  transformed  into  united,  free,  and  independ- 
ent States.  Each  of  these  formed  a  constituent  portion 
of  the  whole  People  ;  and  it  is  obvious  that  the  power 
SKiknowledged  to  be  in  them  could  neither  be  co-exten- 
sive, nor  inconsistent  with,  that  rightfully  exercised  by 
the  whole  People. 

In  absolving  the  People  of  the  thirteen  United  Colo- 
nies from  th«  bands  of  their  allegiance  to  the  British 
crown,  the  Congress,  representing  the  whole  People, 
neither  did  nor  could  a1)solve  them,  or  any  one  individ- 
ual among  them,  from  the  obligation  ol  any  other  con- 


24 

tract  by  which  he  had  been  previously  bound.  Th^y 
neither  did  nor  could,  for  example,  release  any  portion 
of  the  People  from  the  duties  of  private  and  domestic 
life.  They  could  not  dissolve  the  relations  of  husband 
and  wife ;  of  parent  and  child  ;  of  guardian  and  w^ard  ; 
of  master  and  servant ;  of  partners  in  trade ;  of  debtor  and 
creditor ; — nor  by  the  investment  of  each  of  the  Colonies 
wdth  sovereign  power  could  they  bestow  upon  them  the 
power  of  dissolving  any  of  those  relations,  or  of  absolv- 
ing any  one  of  the  individual  citkens  of  the  Colony  from 
the  fulfilment  of  all  the  obhgations  resulting  from  them. 

The  sovereign  authority,  conferred  upon  the  People  of 
the  Colonies  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  could 
not  dispense  them,  nor  any  individual  citizen  of  them, 
from  the  fulfilment  of  all  their  moral  obligations  ;  for  to 
these  they  were  bound  by  the  laws  of  Nature's  God ; 
nor  is  there  any  power  upon  earth  capable  of  granting 
absolution  from  them.  The  People,  who  assumed  their 
equal  and  separate  station  among  the  powders  of  the 
Giarth  by  the  laws  of  Nature's  God,  by  that  very  act  ac- 
knowledged themselves  bound  to  the  observance  of 
t^ose  laws,  and  could  neither  exercise  nor  confer  any 
power  inconsistent  wath  them. 

The  sovereign  authority,  conferred  by  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  upon  the  people  of  each  of  the  Colo- 
nies, could  n'ot  exterfcd  to  the  exercise  of  any  powder  in- 
consistent with  that  Declaration  itself.  It  could  not,  for 
example,  authorize  any  one  of  the  United  States  to  con- 
clude a  separate  peace  with  Great  Britain  ;  to  connect 
itself  as  a  Colony  with  France,  or  any  other  Euriopean 
power;  to  contract  a  separate  alliance  wath  any  other 
State  of  the  Union  ;  or  separately  to  establish  cora- 
merce.  These  are  all  acts  of  sovereignty,  which  tHe 
Declaration  of  Independence  affirmed  the  United  States 


were  competent  to  perform,  but  which  for  that  very  rea- 
son were  necessarily  excluded  from  the  powers  of  sove- 
reignty conferred  upon  each  of  the  separate  States.  The 
Declaration  itself  was  at  once  a  social  compact  of  the 
whole  People  of  the  Union,  embracing  thirteen  distinct 
eoramunities  united  in  one,  and  a  manifesto  proclaiming 
themselves  to  the  world  of  mankind,  as  one  Nation,  pos* 
«essed  of  all  the  attributes  of  sovereign  power.  But  this 
nnited  sovereignty  could  not  possibly  consist  with  the 
absolute  sovereignty  of  each  of  the  separate  States. 

**  That  were  to  make 
Strange  contradiction,  which  to  God  hinaself 
Irapossible  is  held,  as  argument 
Of  weakness,  not  of  power."* 

The  position,  thus  assumed  by  this  one  People  con- 
sisdng  of  thirteen  free  and  independent  States,  was  new 
in  the  history  of  the  world.  It  was  complicated  and 
compounded  of  elements  never  before  believed  suscep- 
tible of  being  blended  together.  The  error  of  the  Brit- 
ish Parliament,  the  proximate  cause  of  the  Revolution, 
that  sovereignty  was  in  its  nature  unlimited  and  illimita- 
ble, taught  as  a  fundamental  doctrine  by  all  the  English 
lawyers,  was  too  deeply  imprinted  upon  the  minds  of  the 
lawyers  of  our  own  country  to  be  eradicated,  even  by  the 
civil  war,  which  it  had  produced.  The  most  celiebrated 
British  moralist  of  the  age.  Dr.  Samuel  Johnson,  in  a  con- 
troversial tract  on  the  dispute  between  Britain  and  her 
Colonies,  had  expressly  laid  down  as  the  basis  of  his  ar- 
gument, that — "All  government  is  essentially  absolute. 
That  in  sovereignty  there  are  no  gradations.  That  there 
may  be  limited  royalty ;  there  may  be  limited  consul- 
ship ;  but  there  can  be  no  limited  government.  There 
must  in  every  society  be  some  power  or  other  from 
which  there  is  no  appeal ;  which  admits  no  restrictions ; 
which  pervades  the  whole  mass  of  the  community  ;  reg- 

*  Milton.    Paradise  Lost,— B.  tO— 1.  798. 

3 


26 


ulates  and  adjusts  all  subordination ;  enacts  laws  or  re- 
peals them ;  erects  or  annuls  judicatures ;  extends  or 
contracts  privileges;  exempts  itself  from  question  or 
control ;  and  bounded  only  by  physical  necessity."* 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  founded  upon 
the  direct  reverse  of  all  these  propositions.  It  did  not 
recognize,  but  implicitly  denied,  the  unlimited  nature  of 
sovereignty.  By  the  affirmation  that  the  principal  natural 
rights  of  mankind  are  unalienable,  it  placed  them  beyond 
the  reach  of  organized  human  power ;  and  by  affirming 
that  governments  are  instituted  to  secure  them,  and  may 
and  ought  to  be  abolished  if  they  become  destructive  of 
those  ends,  they  made  all  government  subordinate  to  the 
moral  supremacy  of  the  People, 

The  Declaration  itself  did  not  even  announce  the 
States  as  sovereign,  but  as  united,  free  and  independent, 
and  having  power  to  do  all  acts  and  things  which  inde- 
pendent States  may  of  right  do.  It  acknowledged, 
therefore,  a  rule  o^  right,  paramount  to  the  power  of  in- 
dependent States  itself,  and  virtually  disclaimed  all  pow- 
er to  do  wrong.  This  was  a  novelty  in  the  moral  phi- 
losophy of  nations,  and  it  is  the  essential  point  of  difFer- 
.enoe  between  the  system  of  government  announced  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  those  systems 
which  had  until  then  prevailed  among  men.  A  moral 
Ruler  of  the  universe,  the  Governor  and  Controller  of  all 
human  power,  is  the  only  unlimited  sovereign  acknow- 
ledged by  the  Declaration  of  Independence;  and  it  claims 
for  the  United  States  of  America,  when  assuming  their 
equal  station  among  the  nations  of  the  earth,  only  the 
power  to  do  all  that  may  be  done  of  right. 

Threescore  and  one  years  have  passed  away,  sine© 
this  Declaration  w^as  issued,  and  we  may  now  judge  of 
the  tree  by  its  fruit.  It  was  a  bold  and  hazardous  step, 
when  considered  merely  as  the  act  of  separation  of  th« 

^  Johnson's  Taxation  no  Tyranny. 


27 


Golonies  from  Great  Britain.  Had  the  cause  in  which  it 
was  issued  failed,  it  w^ould  have  subjected  every  individ- 
ual who  signed  it  to  the  pains  and  penalties  of  treason  ; 
to  a  cruel  and  ignominious  death.  But,  inflexible  as  w^ere 
the  spirits,  and  intrepid  as  w^ere  the  hearts  of  the  patri- 
ots, who  by  this  act  set  at  defiance  the  colossal  power  of 
the  British  Empire,  bolder  and  more  intrepid  still  were 
the  souls,  which,  at  that  crisis  in  human  affairs,  dared  to 
proclaim  the  new  and  fundamental  principles  upon  which 
their  incipient  Repubhc  was  to  be  founded.  It  was  an 
experiment  upon  the  heart  of  man.  All  the  legislators 
of  the  human  race,  until  that  day,  had  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  all  government  among  men  in  power  ;  and  hence 
it  w^as,  that,  in  the  maxims  of  theory,  as  w^ell  as  in  the 
practice  of  nations,  sovereignty  was  held  to  be  unhmited 
and  illimitable.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  pro- 
claimed another  law.  A  law^  of  resistance  against  sove- 
reign power,  when  wielded  for  oppression.  A  law^  as- 
cending the  tribunal  of  the  universal  law  giver  and  judge. 
A  law^  of  right y  binding  upon  nations  as  well  as  individu- 
als, upon  sovereigns  as  well  as  upon  subjects.  By  that 
law  the  colonists  had  resisted  their  sovereign.  By  that 
Iaw%  when  that  resistance  had  failed  to  reclaim  him  to 
the  rule  of  right,  they  renounced  him,  abjured  his  alleg- 
iance, and  assumed  the  exercise  of  rightful  sovereignty 
themselves.  But,  in  assuming  the  attributes  of  sovereign 
power,  they  appealed  to  the  Supreme  Judge  of  the  w^arld 
for  the  rectitude  of  their  intentions,  and  neither  claimed 
Hor  conferred  authority  to  do  any  thing  but  of  right. 

Of  the  war  with  Great  Britain,  by  which  the  indepen- 
dence thus  declared  w^as  maintained,  and  of  the  peace  by 
w^hich  it  was  acknowledged,  it  is  unnecessary  to  say  more. 
The  war  was  deeply  distressing  and  calamitous,  and  its 
most  instructive  lesson  was  to  teach  the  nevv  confeder- 
ate Repubhc  the  inestimable  value  of  the  blessings  of 
peace.     When  the  peace  came,  all  controversy   with 


28 

Great  Britain,  with  regard  to  the  principles  upon  which 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  been  issued,  wa» 
terminated,  and  ceased  forever.  The  main  purpose  for 
which  it  had  been  issued  was  accomplished.  No  idle 
exultation  of  victory  was  worthy  of  the  holy  cause  in 
which  it  had  been  achieved.  No  ungenerous  triumph 
over  the  defeat  of  a  generous  adversary  was  consistent 
with  the  purity  of  the  principles  upon  which  the  strife 
had  been  maintained.  Had  that  contest  furnished  the 
only  motives  for  the  celebration  of  the  day,  its  anniver- 
sary should  have  ceased  to  be  commemorated,  and  the 
Fourth  of  July  would  thenceforward  have  passed  unno-. 
ticed  from  year  to  year,  scarcely  numbered  among  the 
dies  fasti  of  the  Nation. 

But  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  abolished 
the  government  of  the  thirteen  British  Colonies  in  North 
America.  A  new  government  was  to  be  instituted  in  it» 
stead.  A  task  more  trying  had  devolved  upon  the  Peo- 
ple of  the  Union  than  the  defence  of  their  country  against 
foreign  armies ;  a  duty  more  arduous  than  that  of  lighting 
the  battles  of  the  Revolution. 

The  elements  and  the  principles  for  the  formation  of 
the  new.  government  were  all  contained  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence ;  but  the  adjustment  of  them  to  the 
condition  of  the  parties  to  the  compact  was  a  work  of 
time,  of  reflection,  of  experience,  of  calm  dehberation,  of 
moral  and  intellectual  exertion ;  for  those  elements  wxre 
far  from  being  homogeneous,  and  there  were  circum- 
stances in  the  condition  of  the  parties,  far  from  conform- 
able to  the  principles  proclaimed.  The  Declaration  had 
laid  the  foundation  of  all  civil  government,  in  the  unalien- 
able natural  rights  of  individual  man,  of  which  it  had  spe- 
cifically named  three :  —  life,  liberty,  and  the  purs-uit  of 
happiness, — declaring  them  to  be  among  others  not  en- 
umerated. The  revolution  had  been  exclusively  popular 
and  democratic,  and  the  Declaration  had  announced  that 


29 

the  only  object  of  the  iastitution  of  governments  among 
men  was  to  secure  their  unalienable  rights,  and  that  they 
derived  their  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  govern- 
ed. The  Declaration  proclaimed  the  parties  to  the  com- 
pact as  one  People,  composed  of  united  Colonies,  thence- 
forward free  and  iulependent  States,  constrained  by  ne- 
cessity to  alter  their  former  systems  of  government.  It 
would  seem  necessarily  to  follow  from  these  elements  and 
these  principles, that  the  governmsnt  for  tha  whole  Peo- 
ple should  have  been  instituted  by  the  whole  People, 
and  the  government  of  each  of  the  independent  States 
by  the  People  of  that  State.  But  obvious  as  that  con- 
clusion is,  it  is  nevertheless  equally  true,  that  it  has  not 
been  wholly  accomphshed  even  to  this  day. 

On  the  tenth  of  May  preceding  the  day  of  the  Declar- 
ation, the  Congress  had  adopted  a  resolution,  which  may 
be  considered  as  the  herald  to  that  Independence.  After 
its  adoption  it  was  considered  of  such  transcendent  impor- 
tance, that  a  special  committee  of  three  members  was 
appointed  to  prepare  a  preamble  to  it.  On  the  fifteenth 
of  May  this  preamble  was  reported,  adopted,  and  order- 
ed to  be  pubhshed,  with  the  resolution,  which  had  been 
adopted  tn  the  tenth.  The  preamble  and  resolution 
are  in  the  following  words : 

"  Whereas  his  Britannic  Majesty,  in  conjunction  with 
the  Lords  and  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  has,  by  a  late 
Act  of  Parliament,  excluded  the  inhabitants  of  the^e 
United  Colonies  from  the  protection  of^^is  crov*^n  ;  and 
whereas  no  answer  whatever  to  the  humble  petitions  of 
the  Colonies,  for  redress  of  grievances  and  reconciliation 
with  Great  Britain^  has  been  or  is  likely  to  be  given,  but 
the  whole  course  of  that  kingdom,  aided  by  foreign  mer- 
cenaries, is  to  be  exerted  for  the  destrucuon  of  the  good 
people  of  these  Colonies ;  and  whereas  it  appears  abso- 
lutely irreconcileable  to  reason  and  good  conscience  for 
the  people  of  these  Colonies  now  to  take  the  oaths  and 


30 

affirmations  necessary  for  the  support  of  any  govern- 
ment under  the  crown  of  Great  Britain,  and  it  is  neces- 
sary that  the  exercise  of  every  kind  of  authority  under 
the  said  crown  should  he  totally  suppressed,,  and  all  the 
powers  of  government  exerted  under  the  authority  of  tlie 
people  of  the  Colonies,  for  the  preservation  of  internal 
peace,  virtue,  and  good  order,  as  well  as  for  the  defence 
of  their  Uves,  liberties,  and  properties,  against  the  hos- 
tile invasions  and  cruel  depredations  of  their  enemies: — 
Therefore,  Resolved, 

"That  it  be  recommended  to  the  respective  assem-^ 
bhes  and  conventions  of  the  United  Colonies,  where  no 
government  sufficient  to  the  exigencies  of  their  affairs 
kath  been  hitherto  estabUshed,  to  adopt  such  govern- 
ment as  shall,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Representatives  of 
the  People,  best  conduce  to  the  happiness  and  safety  of 
their  constituents  in  particular,  and  America  in  general" 

The  People  of  some  of  the  Colonies  had  not  waited 
for  this  recommendation,  to  assume  all  the  powers  of 
their  internal  goverament  into  theu^  own  hands.  In 
some  of  them,  the  governments  constituted  by  the  royal 
charters  were  continued  without  alteration  ;  or  with  the 
mere  divestment  of  the  portion  of  the  public  authority, 
exercised  by  the  crown.  In  others,  constitutions  had 
been  adopted,  or  were  in  preparation  by  representative 
popular  conventions.  Massachusetts  was  represented 
by  a  Provincial  Congress,  elected  by  the  people  as  the 
General  Court  had  been  under  the  royal  charter,  and 
from  that  assembly  the  general  Congress  had  been  urg- 
ently invoked,  for  their  advice  in  the  formation  of  a  gov- 
ernment adapted  to  the  emergency,  and  unshackled  by 
transatlantic  dependence. 

The  institution  of  civil  government  by  the  authority  of 
the  People,  in  each  of  the  separate  Colonies,  was  thus 
uiuversally  recognized  as  resulting  from  the  dissolution 
of  their  jjillegiance  to  the  British  crown.      But,  that  the 


»r 


union  could  be  cemented  and  the  national  powers  of 
government  exercised  of  right,  only  by  a  constitution  of 
government  emanating  from  the  whole  People,  was  not 
jet  discovered.  The  powers  of  the  Congress  then  ex- 
isting, were  revolutionary  and  undefined  ;  limited  by  no 
constitution ;  responsible  to  no  common  superior ;  dic- 
tated by  the  necessities  of  a  death-struggle  for  freedom  ; 
and  embracing  all  discretionary  means  to  organize  and 
maintain  the  resistance  of  the  people  of  all  the  Coloniei 
against  the  oppression  of  the  British  Parliament.  In  de- 
vising measures  for  giving  permanence,  and,  as  far  as  hu- 
man wdsdom  could  provide,  perpetuity,  to  the  Union 
which  had  been  formed  by  the  common  sufferings  and 
dangers  of  the  whole  People,  they  universally  concluded 
that  a  confederation  would  suffice ;  and  that  a  confeder- 
ation could  be  instituted  by  the  authority  of  the  States, 
without  the  intervention  of  the  People. 

On  the  twentyfirst  of  July,  1775,  nearly  a  year  before 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  sketch  of  articles  of 
eonfederation,  and  contingently  perpetual  union,  had 
been  presented  to  Congress  by  Doctor  Franklin,  for  a 
confederacy,  to  be  styled  the  United  Colonies  of  North 
America.  It  was  proposed  that  this  confederacy  should 
continue  until  a  reconciliation  with  Great  Britain  should 
be  effected,  and  only  on  failure  of  such  reconciliation,  to 
be  perpetual.  This  project,  contemplated  only  a  part- 
nership of  Colonies  to  accomplish  their  common  re-sub- 
jugation to  the  British  crown.  It  made  no  provision  for 
a  community  of  independent  States,  and  was  encumber- 
ed with  no  burden  of  sovereignty.  No  further  action 
upon  the  subject  was  had  by  Congress,  till  the  eleventh 
of  June,  1776. 

Four  days  before  this,  that  is,  on  the  seventh  of  Junc^ 
eertain  resolutions  respecting  independency  had  be«» 


32 


moved  and  seconded.  They  were  on  the  next  day  re- 
ferred to  a  committee  of  the  whole,  and  on  Monday,  the 
tenth  of  June,  they  were  agreed  to  in  the  committee  of 
the  whole  and  reported  to  the  Congress. 

The  first  of  these  resolutions  was  that  of  independence. 

The  second  was,  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to 
prepare  and  digest  the  form  of  a  confederation,  to  be  en- 
tered into  between  these  Colonies. 

The  third,  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  prepare 
a  plan  of  treaties  to  be  proposed  to  foreign  powers. 

The  consideration  of  the  first  resolution,  that  of  inde- 
pendence, was  postponed  t©  Monday  the  first  day  of 
July ;  and,  in  the  meanwhile,  that  no  time  should  be  lost, 
in  case  the  Congress  should  agree  thereto,  it  was  re- 
solved, that  a  committee  be  appointed  to  prepare  a  Dec- 
laration, to  the  effect  of  the  resolution. 

On  the  next  day,  the  eleventh  of  June,  the  committee 
to  prepare  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  ap- 
pointed ;  and  immediately  afterwards^  the  appointment 
of  two  other  committees  was  resolved ;  one  to  prepare 
and  digest  the  plan  of  a  confederation,  and  the  other  to 
prepare  the  plan  of  treaties  to  be  proposed  to  foreign 
powers. 

These  committees  were  appointed  on  the  twelfth  of 
June.  The  one,  to  prepare  and  digest  the  plan  for  a 
confederation,  consisted  of  one  member  from  each  Col- 
ony. They  reported  on  the  twelfth  day  of  Ju\y,  eight 
days  after  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  draught  af 
articles  of  confederation  and  perpetual  union  between 
tlie  Colonies,  naming  them  all  from  New-Hampshire  to 
Georgia. 

The  most  remarkable  characteristic  of  this  paper  is 
the  indiscriminate  use  of  the  terms  Colonies  and  States, 
pervading  the  whole  document,  both  the  words  denoting 


33 


the  parties  to  the  confederacy.  The  title  declared  a 
confederacy  between  Colonies,  but  the  first  article  of  the 
draught  was — "The  name  of  this  confederacy  shall  be  th« 
United  States  of  America/'  In  a  passage  of  the  18th  ar- 
ticle, it  was  said, — "  The  United  States  assembled,  shall 
neMer  engage  the  United  Colonies  in  a  w^ar,  unless  the 
delegates  of  nine  Colonies  freely  assent  to  the  same.'' 
The  solution  to  this  singularity  was  that  the  draught  was 
in  preparation  before,  and  reported  after,  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  The  principle  upon  which  it  wa» 
draw  n  up  was,  that  the  separate  members  of  the  confed- 
eracy should  still  continue  Colonies,  and  only  in  their 
united  capacity  constitute  States.  The  idea  of  sieparate 
State  sovereignty  had  evidently  no  part  in  the  composi- 
tion of  this  paper.  It  was  not  countenanced  in  the  Dec- 
laration of  Independence  ;  but  appears  to  have  been  gen- 
erated in  the  debates  upon  this  draught  of  the  articles  of 
confederation,  between  the  twelfth  of  July,  and  the  ensu- 
ing twentieth  of  August,  when  it  w  as  reported  by  the. 
committee  of  the  whole  in  a  new  draught,  from  which 
the  term  Colony,  as  apphed  to  the  contracting  parties, 
was  carefully  and  universally  excluded.  The  revised 
draught,  as  reported  by  the  committee  of  the  whole,  ex- 
hibits, in  the  general  tenour  of  its  articles,  less  of  the 
spirit  of  union,  and  more  of  the  separate  and  sectional 
feeling,  than  the  draught  prepared  by  the  first  committee; 
and  far  more  than  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

This  w^as,  indeed,  what  must  naturally  have  been  ex- 
pected, in  the  progress  of  a  debate,  involving  all  the  jar- 
ring mterests  and  all  the  latent  prejudices  of  the  several 
contracting  parties ;  each  member  now  considering  him- 
self as  the  representative  of  a  separate  and  corporate 
interest,  and  no  longer  acting  and  speaking,  as  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  in  the  name  and  by  the 


34 


authority  of  the  whole  People  of  the  Union.  Yet  in  the 
revised  draught  itself,  reported  by  the  committee  of  the 
whole,  and  therefore  exhibiting  the  dehberate  mind  of 
the  majority  of  Congress  at  that  time,  there  was  no  as- 
sertion of  sovereign  power  as  of  right  intended  to  be  re- 
served to  the  separate  States.  But,  in  the  original  draught, 
reported  by  the  select  committee  on  the  twelfth  of  July,^ 
the  fu'st  words  of  the  second  article  w^ere, —  "The  said 
Colonies  unite  themselves  so  as  never  to  be  divided  by 
any  act  whatever.^*  Precious  words ! — words,  pronounc- 
ed by  the  infant  Nation,  at  the  instant  of  her  rising  from 
the  baptismal  font ! — words  bursting  from  the  hearts  and 
uttered  by  lips  yet  glowing  with  the  touch  from  the  coal 
of  the  Declaration  !— why  were  ye  stricken  out  at  the  re- 
visal  of  the  draught,  as  reported  by  the  committee  of  the 
whole  7 — There  w^as  in  the  closing  article,  both  of  the 
original  and  of  the  revised  draught,  a  provision  in  these 
w^ords,  following  a  stipulation  that  the  articles  of  confed- 
eration, w^hen  ratified,  should  be  observed  by  the  parties 
—  "And  the  union  is  to  be  perpetual." — Words,  which, 
considered  asamere  repetition  of  the  pledge,  the  sacred 
pledge  given  in  those  first  words  of  the  contracting  par- 
ties m  the  original  draught,  —  "  The  said  Colonies  unite 
themselves  so  as  never  to  be  divided  by  any  act  what- 
ever," —  discover  only  the  intenseness  of  the  spirit  of 
union,  w  ith  which  the  draught  had  been  prepared ;  but 
which,  taken  by  themselves,  and  stripped  of  that  pre- 
cious pledge,  given  by  the  personification  of  the  parties 
announcing  their  perpetual  union  to  the  world, — how 
cold  and  lifeless  dothey  sound  !  — '' ^nd  the  union  is  to 
be  perpetual  r — as  if  it  was  an  after- thought,  to  guard 
against  the  conclusion  that  an  union  so  loosely  compact- 
ed, was  not  even  intended  to  be  permanent. 


35 


The  original  draught,  prepared  by  the  committee  eo- 
temporaneously  with  the  preparation,  by  the  other  com- 
mittee, of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  in  twen- 
ty articles.  In  the  revised  draught  reported  by  the  com- 
mittee of  the  whole  on  the  twentieth  of  August,  the  ar- 
ticles were  reduced  to  sixteen.  The  four  articles  omit- 
ted, were  the  very  grapphng  hooks  of  the  Union.  They 
secured  to  the  citizens  of  each  State,  the  rights  of  native 
citizens  in  all  the  rest ;  and  they  conferred  upon  Con- 
gress the  power  of  ascertaining  the  boundaries  of  the 
several  States,  and  of  disposing  of  the  public  lands  which 
should  prove  to  be  beyond  them.  All  these  were  strick- 
en out  of  the  revised  draught.  You  have  seen  the  mu- 
tilation of  the  second  article,  which  constituted  the  Union. 
The  third  article  contained  the  reserved  rights  of  the 
several  parties  to  the  compact,  expressed  in  the  original 
draught  thus : 

"Each  Colony  shall  retain  and  enjoy  as  much  of  its 
present  laws,  rights,  and  customs,  as  it  may  think  fit ; 
and  reserves  to  itself  the  sole  and  exclusive  regulation 
and  government  of  its  internal  police,  in  all  matters  that 
didll  not  interfere  with  the  articles  of  this  confederation." 

In  the  revised  draught,  the  first  clause  was  omitted, 
and  the  article  read  thus  : 

"Each  State  reserves  to  itself  the  sole  and  exdlusive 
regulation  and  government  of  its  internal  police,  in  all 
matters  that  shall  not  interfere  with  the  articles  of  this 
confederation." 

From  the  twentieth  of  August,  1776,  to  the  eighth  of 
April,  1777,  although  the  Congress  were  in  permanent 
session,  without  recess  but  from  day  to  day,  no  further 
action  upon  the  revised  draught  reported  by  the  com- 
mittee of  the  whole  was  had.  The  interval  was  the 
most  gloomy  and  disastrous  period  of  the  war.     Tke 


36 


debates,  on  the  draught  of  articles  reported  by  the  firet 
committee,  had  evolved  and  disclosed  all  the  sources  of 
disunion  existing  between  the  several  sections  of  th« 
eountry,  aggravated  by  the  personal  rivalries,  which,  be- 
tween the  leading  members  of  a  deliberative  assembly, 
animated  by  the  enthusiastic  spirit  of  liberty,  could  not 
fail  to  arise.  When,  instead  of  a  constitution  of  govern- 
ment for  a  whole  People,  a  confederation  of  independent 
States  w^as  assumed,  as  the  fundamental  principle  of  the 
permanent  union  to  be  organized  for  the  American  na- 
tion, the  centripetal  and  centrifugal  political  powers  were 
at  once  brought  into  violent  conflict  with  each  other. 
The  corporation  and  the  popular  spirits  assumed  oppos- 
ite and  adversary  aspects.  The  federal  and  anti -federal 
parties  originated.  State  pride.  State  prejudice,  State 
jealousy,  were  soon  embodied  under  the  banners  of 
State  sovereignty,  and  while  the  cause  of  freedom  and 
independence  itself  was  drooping  under  the  calamities  of 
war  and  pestilence,  with  a  pennyless  treasury,  and  an 
all  but  disbanded  army,  the  Congress  of  the  people  had 
BO  heart  to  proceed  in  the  discussion  of  a  confederacy, 
overrun  by  a  victorious  enemy,  and  on  the  point,  to  all 
external  appearance,  of  being  crushed  by  the  wheels  of 
a  conqueror's  triumphal  car. 

Oh  the  eighth  of  April,  1 777,  the  draught  reported  by 
Ae  committee  of  the  whole,  on  the  preceding  twentieth 
of  August,  was  nevertheless  taken  up ;  and  it  was  re- 
solved that  two  days  in  each  w-eek  should  be  employed 
#&  that  subject,  until  it  should  be  wholly  discussed  ia 
Congress.  The  exigencies  of  the  war,  however,  did  not 
admit  the  regular  execution  of  this  order.  The  articles 
were  debated  only  upon  six  days  in  the  months  of  April, 
May,  and  June,  on  the  twenty^ixth  of  which  month  the 
ferther  consideration  of  them  was  indefinitely  postponed. 


s? 


iOn  the  eighteenth  ef  September  of  that  year,  the  Con- 
gress were  obliged  to  withdraw  from  the  city  of  Phila- 
delphia, possession  of  which  was  immediately  afterwards 
taken  by  the  British  army  under  the  command  of  Sir 
William  Howe.  Congress  met  again  on  the  thirtieth  of 
September,  at  Yorktown,  in  the  state  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  there,  on  the  second  of  October,  resumed  the  con- 
sideration of  the  articles  of  confederation.  From  that 
tim-e  to  the  fifteenth  of  November,  the  debates  were  un- 
remitting. The  yeas  and  nays,  of  which  there  had  un- 
til then  been  no  example,  were  rtow  taken  upon  every 
prominent  question  submitted  for  consideration,  and  the 
struggle  between  the  party  of  the  States  and  the  party 
of  the  People  became,  from  day  to  day,  more  vehement 
and  pertinacious.  The  first  question  upon  which  the 
yeas  and  nays  were  called  was^  that  the  representation  in 
the  Congress  of  the  confederation  should  be  proportional 
to  a  ratio  of  population,  which  was  presented  in  two  sev- 
eral modifications,  and  rejected  in  both.  The  next  pro- 
posal vvas,  that  it  should  be  j^roportional  to  the  tax  or 
contribution  paid  by  the  several  States  to  the  public 
treasuryc  This  was  also  rejected ;  and  it  was  finally 
Settled  as  had  been  reported  by  the  committee,  that  each 
State  should  have  one  vote.  Then  came  the  question  of 
the  proportional  contributions  of  the  several  States. 
This  involved  the  primary  principle  of  the  Revolution  it- 
self, which  had  been  the  indissoluble  connection  between 
taxation  and  representation.  It  follows  as  a  necessary  \ 
consequence  from  this,  that  all  just  taxation  must  be  pro- 
portioned to  representation ;  and  here  was  the  first 
stumbling  block  of  the  confederation.  Statg_^verei^n- 
ty,  which  in  the  colltsibn  of  debate  had  become  stiff  and 
intractable,  insisted  that,  in  the  Congress  of  the  Union, 
Massachusetts  and  Rhode  Island,   Virginia  and  Dela- 

4 


38 


ware,  should  each  have  one  vote  and  no  more.  But 
when  the  burdens  of  the  confederacy  came  to  be  appor- 
tioned, this  equality  could  no  longer  be  preserved  ;  a 
different  proportion  became  indispensable,  and  a  terri- 
torial  basis  was  assumed,  apportioned  to  the  value  of 
improved  land  in  each  State.  From  the  moment  that 
these  two  questions  were  thus  setded,  it  might  have 
been  foreseen  that  the  confederacy  must  prove  an  abor- 
tion. Inequality  and  injustice  v/ere  at  its  root.  It  was 
inconsistent  with  itself,  and  the  seeds  of  its  speedy  dis- 
solution were  sown  at  its  birth. 

But  the  question  of  the  respective  contributions  of  the 
several  States,  brought  up  another  and  still  more  formid- 
able cause  of  discord  and  coiUsion.  What  were  the  sev- 
eral/S/a/es  themselves?  What  was  their  extent,  and 
where  were  their  respective  boundaries  1  They  claimed 
their  territory  by  virtue  o^ charters  from  the  British  kings, 
and  by  cessions  from  sundry  tribes  of  Indians.  But  the 
charters  of  the  kings  were  grossly  inconsistent  with  one 
another.  The  charters  had  granted  lands  to  several  of 
the  States,  by  hnes  of  latitude  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific  ocean.  Yet  by  the  treaty  of  peace  of  February, 
1763,  between  Great  Britain  and  France,  the  King  of 
Great  Britain  had  agreed  that  the  boundary  of  the  Brit- 
ish territories  in  North  America  should  be  the  middle  of 
the  river  jMississippi,  from  its  source  to  the  river  Iber- 
ville, and  thence  to  the  ocean.  The  British  colonial  set- 
tlements had  never  been  extended  westward  of  the  Ohio, 
and  when  the  peace  should  come  to  be  concluded,  it 
was  exceedingly  doubtful  what  western  boundary  could 
be  obtained  from  the  assent  of  Great  Britain.  Besides 
Avhich,  there  were  claims  of  Spain,  and  a  system  of  pol- 
icy in  France,  in  no  wise  encouraging  to  the  expectation 
of  an  extended  western  fronUer  to  the  United  States. 


so 

Here  then  were  collisions  of  interest  between  the  States 
narrowly   and    definitely   bounded  westward,  and  the 
States  claiming  to  the  South  sea   or  to  the  Mississippi, 
which  it  was  in  vain  attempted  to  adjust.     In  the  original 
draught  of  the  articles  of  confederation,  reported  on  the 
twelfth  of  July,  among  the  powers  proposed  to  be  with- 
in the  exclusive  right  of  the  United  States  assembled, 
were  those  of  "limiting  the  bounds  of  those  Colonies, 
which,  by  charter,  or  proclamation,  or  under  any  pretence, 
are  said  to  extend  to  the  South  sea;  and  ascertaining 
those  bounds  of  any  other  Colony  that  appear  to  be  in- 
determinate :  assigning  territories  for  new  Colonies,  either 
in  lands  to  be  thus  separated  from  Colonies,  and  heretc;- 
fore  purchased  or  obtained  by  the  crown  of  Great  Brit- 
ain of  the  Indians,  or  hereafter  to  be  purchased  or  ob- 
tained  from  them  :  disposing  of  ail  such  lands  for  the 
general  benefit  of  all  the  United  Colonies:  ascertaining 
boundaries  to  such  new  Colonies,  within  which  forms  oi' 
government  are  to  be  established  on  the  principles  of 
hberty."     This  had  been  struck  out  of  the  revised  arti- 
cles reported  by  the  committee  of  the  whole.     A  prop- 
osition was  now  made  to  require  of  the  Legislatures  of 
the  several  States,  a  description  of  their  territorial  lands, 
ixnd  documentary  evidence  of  their  claims,  to  ascertain' 
theirboundaries  by  the  articles  of  the  confederation.  This 
was  rejected.     Another  proposition  was,  to  bestowupon 
Congress  the  power  to  ascertain  and  fix   the  western 
boundary  of  the  States  claiming  to  the  South  sea,  and  to 
dispose  of  the  lands  beyond  this  boundary  for  the  bene- 
fit of  the  Union.     This  also  was  rejected ;  as  was  a  sim- 
ilar proposal  with  regard  to  the  States  claiming  to  the 
Mississippi,  or  to  the  South  sea. 

These  were  all  unavailing  efforts  to  restore  to  the  de- 
finitive articles  of  confederation,  the  provisions  concern- 


40 


ing  the  boundaries  of  the  several  States  which  had  been 
reported  in  the  original  draught,  and  struck  out  of  the 
draught  reported  by  the  committee  of  the  whole,  on  the 
twentieth  of  August,  1776.  An  interval  of  fourteen 
months  had  since  elapsed,,  which  seemed  rather  to  Irmve 
weakened  tlie  spirit  of  unions  and  to  have  strength- 
ened the  anti-social  prejudices,  and  the  lofty  pretensiofis 
of  State  sovereignty.  The  articles  containing  the  grant 
of  powers  to  Congress^  arid  prescribing  restrictions  upon> 
those  of  the  States,  were  fruitful  of  cojatroversial  ques- 
tions and  of  litigious  passions,  which  consumed  much  of 
the.  time  of  Congress  till  the  fifteenth  of  November,  1777, 
when,  the  articles  of  canfederation,  as  finally  matured  and 
elaborated,  were  concluded  and  sent  forth  to  the  State 
Legislatures  for-  their  adoptiom  They  were  to-  take  ef- 
fect only  when  approved  by  them  all,  and  ratified  with 
their  authority  by  their  Delegates  in  Congress.  It  was 
provided,  by  one  of  the  articles,  that  no  alteration  of 
them  should  ever  be  admitted,  unless  sanctioned.  w.itF^ 
the  same  unartimity.  There  was  a  solemn  promise,  in- 
serted in  the  concluding  artitle-,.  that  the  articles  of  eon- 
federation  should  be  inviolably  observed  by  every  State,, 
and  that  the  Union  should  be  perpetual 

The  consummation  of  the  triumph  of  unlimited  State 
sovereignty  over  the  spirit  of  union,  was  seen  in  the 
transposition  of  the  second  and  third  of  the  articles  re- 
ported by  the  committees,  and  the  inverted  order  q£ 
their  insertion  Jn  the  articles  finally  adopted. 

The  first  article  in  them  all  gave  the  name,  or  as  it 
was  at  last  called,  the  style,  of  the  confederacy,  "  The 
United  States  of  ^mrica:'  The  name,  by  which  the 
!  nation  has  ever  since  been  known,  and  now  illustrious 
among  the  nations  of  the  earth.  The  second  article, 
of  the   plans  reported  to  the   Congress  by   the  original 


41 


committee  and  by  the  committee  of  the  whole,  con- 
stituted and  declared  the  Union,  in  the  first  project 
commencing  with  those  most  affecting  and  ever-mem- 
orable words, — "The  said  Colonies  unite  them- 
selves so  as  never  to  be  divided  by  any  act  whatever :" 
la  the  project  reported  by  the  committee  of  the  whole, 
these  words  were  struck  out,  but  the  article  still  consti- 
tuted and  declared  the  Union.  The  third  article  con- 
tained, in  both  projects,  the  rights  reserved  by  the  re- 
spective States  ;  rights  of  internal  legislation  and  police, 
in  all  matters  7iot  interfering  with  the  articles  of  the 
confederation. 

But  on  the  fifteenth  of  November,  1777,  when  the  par- 
tial, exclusive,  selfish  and  jealous  spirit  of  State  sove- 
reignty had  been  fermenting  and  fretting  over  the  arti- 
cles, stirring  up  all  the  oppositions  of  the  corporate  in- 
terests and  humours  of  the  parties,  when  the  articles 
came  to  be  concluded,  the  order  of  the  second  and  third 
articles  was  inverted.  The  reservation  of  the  rights  of 
the  separate  States  was  made  to  precede  the  institution 
of  the  Union  itself.  Instead  of  limiting  the  reservation 
to  its  municipal  laws  and  the  regulation  and  government 
of  their  internal  police,  in  all  matters  7iot  interfering  with 
the  articles  of  the  confederation,  they  ascend  the  throne 
of  State  sovereignty,  and  make  the  articles  of  confedera- 
tion themselves  mere  specific  exceptions  to  the  general 
reservation  of  all  the  powers  of  government  to  them- 
selves. The  article  was  in  these  words :  "  Each  State 
retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom,  and  independence,  and 
every  power,  jurisdiction,  and  right,  which  is  not  by  this  • 
confederation  expressly  delegated  to  the  United  States 
in  Congress  assembled."  How  different  from  the  spirit 
of  the  article,  which  began, — "  The  said  Colonies  unite 
themselves  so  as  never  to  be  divided  by  any  act  what- 
4* 


4i 


ever  !^  The  institution  of  the  Union  was  now  posfpon--- 
ed  to  follow  and  not  to  precede  the  reservations  ;  and 
cooled  into  a  mere  league  of  friendship  and  of  mutual 
defence  between  the  States.  More  than  sixteen  months 
of  the  time  of  Congress  had  been  absorbed  in  the  prep- 
aration of  this  document.  More  than  three  years  and 
four  months-  passed  away  before  its  confirmation  by  the 
Legislatures  of  all  the  States,  and  no  sooner  was  it  rati-^ 
fiedj  than  its  utter  inefficiency  to  perform  the  functions 
of  a  g.overame»ty  &r  even  to  f»l&l  the  purposes  of  a  con- 
federacy, became  apparent  to  all !  In  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  the  members  of  Congress  who  signed  it 
had  spoken  ia  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  Peo- 
ple of  the  Colonies.  In  the  articles  of  confederation  they 
had  sunk  into  Representatives  of  the  separate  States, 
The  genius  of  unlimited  State  sovereignty  had  usurped  • 
the  powers  wtdich  belonged  only  to  the  People,  and  the 
State  Legislatures  and  their  Representatives  had  arro-^ 
gated  to  themselves  the  whole  constituent  power,  while 
they  themselves  were  Representatives  only  of  fragments 
of  the  nation. 

The  articles  of  confederation  were  satisfactory  to  no 
one  of  the  States  :  they  were  adopted  by  many  of  them, 
after  much  procrastination,  and  with  great  reluctance. 
The  State  of  xVIai-yland  persisted  in  withholding  her  rati- 
fication, until  the  question  relating  to  the  unsettled  lands 
had  been  adjusted  by  cessions  of  them  to  the  United 
:States,for  the  benefit  of  them  all,  from  the  States  separ- , 
ately  claiming  them  to  the  South  sea,  or  the  Mississippi. 
The  ratification  of  the  articles  was  completed  on  the  first 
oi  March,  1781,  and  the  experiment  of  a  merely  confed' 
crated  Union  of  the  thirteen  States  commenced.     It  was 
the  statue  of  Pygmalion  before  its  animation,  —  beautiful 
and  Ufeless. 


43 

And  where  was  the  vital  spark  which  was  to  quicken 
this  marble  into  life?  It  was  in  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence. Analyze,  at  this  distance  of  time,  the  two 
documents,  with  cool  and  philosophical  impartiahty,  and 
you  will  exchim, — Never,  never  since  the  creation  of  the 
world,  did  two  state  papers,  emanating  from  the  same 
body  of  men,  exhibit  more  dissimilarity  of  character,  or 
more  conflict  of  principle!  The  Declaration,  glowing 
with  the  spirit  of  union,  speaking  with  one  voice  the 
vindication  of  one  People  for  the  act  of  separating  them- 
selves from  another,  and  ascending  to  the  First  Cause, 
the  dispenser  of  eternal  justice,  for  the  foundation  of  its 
reasoning: — The  articles  of  confederation,  stamped  with 
the  features  of  contention ;  beginning  with  niggardly  res- 
ervations of  corporate  rights,  and  in  the  grant  of  powers, 
seeming  to  have  fallen  into  the  frame  of  mind  described 
by  the  sentimental  traveller,  bargaining  for  a  post  chaise, 
and  viewing  his  conventionist  with  an  eye  as  if  he  was 
going  with  him  to  fight  a  duel  \ 

Yet,  let  us  not  hastily  charge  our  fathers  with  incon- 
sistency for  these  repugnances  between  their  different 
works.  Let  us  never  forget  that  the  jealousy  of  power 
is  the  watchful  handmaid  to  the  spirit  of  freedom.  Let 
the  contemplation  of  these  rugged  and  narrow  passes  of 
the  mountains  first  with  so  much  toil  and  exertion  trav- 
ersed by  them,  teach  us  that  the  smooth  surfaces  and 
rapid  railways,  which  have  since  been  opened  to  us,  ar-e 
but  the  means  furnished  to  us  of  arriving  by  swifter  con- 
veyance to  a  more  advanced  stage  of  improvement  in 
our  condition.  Let  the  obstacles,  which  they  encoun- 
tered and  surmounted,  teach  us  how  much  easier  it  is  in 
morals  and  politics,  as  well  as  in  natural  philosophy  and 
physics,  to  pull  down  than  to  build  up,  to  demolish  than 
to  construct ;  then,  how  much  more  arduous  and  diffi- 
cult was  their  task  to  form  a  system  of  polity  for  the 
people  whom  they  ushered  into  the  family  of  nations. 


44 

than  to  separate  them  from  the  parent  State  ;  and  lastly, 
the  gratitude  due  from  us  to  that  Being  whose  provi- 
dence watched  over,  protected,  and  guided  our  pohtical 
infancy,  and  led  our  ancestors  finally  to  retrace  their 
steps,  to  correct  their  errors,  and  resort  to  the  whole 
People  of  the  Union  for  a  constitution  of  government, 
emanating  from  themselves,  which  might  reahze  that  un- 
ion so  feelingly  expressed  by  the  first  draught  of  their 
confederation,  so  as  never  to  be  divided  by  any  act  what- 
ever. 

The  origin  and  history  of  this  Constitution  is  doubtless 
familiar  to  most  of  my  hearers,  and  should  be  held  in 
perpetual  remembrance  by  us  all.  It  was  the  consum- 
mation of  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  has  giv- 
en the  sanction  of  half  a  century's  experience  to  the 
principles  of  that  Declaration.  The  attempt  to  sanction 
them  by  a  confederation  of  sovereign  States  was  made 
and  signally  failed.  It  was  five  years  in  coming  to  an 
immature  birth,  and  expired  after  five  years  of  languish- 
ing and  impotent  existence. 

On  the  seventeenth  of  next  September,  fifty  years 
will  have  passed  away  since  the  Constitution  of  the  Unit- 
ed States  was  presented  to  the  People  for  their  accept- 
ance. On  that  day  the  twenty-fifth  biennial  Congress, 
organized  by  this  Constitution,  will  be  in  session.  And 
what  a  happy,  what  a  glorious  career  have  the  people 
passed  through  in  the  half  century  of  their  and  your  ex- 
istence associated  under  it !  When  that  Constitution  was 
adopted,  the  States  of  which  it  was  composed  were  thir- 
teen in  number, — their  whole  population  not  exceeding 
three  millions  and  a  half  of  souls  ;  the  extent  of  terri- 
tory within  their  boundary  so  large  that  it  was  befieved 
too  unwueldy  to  be  manageable,  even  under  one  federa- 
tive government,  but  less  than  one  million  of  square  miles  ; 
without  revenue ;  encumbered  with  a  burdensome  rev- 
olutionary debt,  without  means  of  discharging  even  the 


4^ 

annual  interest  accruing  upon  it ;  with  no  manufactures  ; 
with  a  commerce  scarcely  less  restricted  than  befoFe  the 
revolutionary  war;  denied  by  Spain  the  privilege  of  de- 
scending the  Mississippi ;  denied  by  Great  Britain  the 
stipulated  possession  of  a  Hne  of  forts  on  the  Canadian 
frontier;  with  a  disastrous  Indian  war  at  the  west;  with 
a  deep-laid  Spanish  intrigue  with  many  of  our  own  citi- 
zens, to  dismember  the  Union,  and  subject  to  the  do- 
minion of  Spain  the  whole  valley  of  the  Mississippi ;  with 
a  Congress,  imploring  a  grant  of  new  powers  to  enable 
them  to  redeem  the  pubhc  faith,  answered  by  a  flat  re- 
fusal, evasive  conditions,  or  silent  contempt ;  with  popu- 
lar insurrection  scarcely  extinguished  in  this  our  own 
native  Commonwealth,  and  smoking  into  flame  in  sever- 
al others  of  the  States  ;  with  an  impotent  and  despised 
government ;  a  distressed,  discontented,  discordant  peo- 
ple, and  the  fathers  of  the  revolution  burning  with  shame, 
and  almost  sinking  into  despair  of  its  issue. — Fellow 
citizens  of  a  later  generation !  You,  whose  lot  it  has 
been  to  be  born  in  happier  times  ;  you,  who  even  now 
are  smarting  under  a  transient  cloud  intercepting  the 
daz-zling  sun-shine  of  your  prosperity  ; — think  you  that 
the  pencil  of  fancy  has  been  borrowed  to  deepen  the 
shades  of  this  dark  and  desolate  picture  ?  Ask  of 
your  surviving  fathers,  cotemporaries  of  him  who  now 
addresses  you,-' — ask  of  them,  whose  hospitable  man- 
sions often  welcomed  him  to  their  firesides,  when  he 
came  in  early  youth  to  receive  instruction  from  the  gi- 
gantic intellect  and  profound  learning  of  a  Parsons, — ask 
of  them,  if  there  be  any  among  you  that  survive,  and 
they  will  tell  you,  that,  far  from  being  overcharged,  the 
portraiture  of  that  dismal  day  is  only  deficient  in  the  faint- 
ness  of  its  colouring  and  the  lack  of  energy  in  the  paint- 
er's hand.  Such  was  the  condition  of  this  your  beloved 
country  after  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  war,  under 
the  blast  of  the  desert,  in  the  form  of    a  confederacy  ; 


46 

when,  wafted,  as  on  the  spicy  gales  of  Araby  the  blest, 
your  Constitution,  with  Washingtox  at  its  head, 

"  Came  o'er  our  ears  like  the  sweet  south 
That  breathes  upon  a  bank  of  violets> 
I  Stealing  and  giving  odour." 

And  what,  under  that  Constitution,  still  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land,  is  the  condition  of  your  country  at  this 
hour  ?  Spare  me  the  unwelcome  and  painful  task  of  ad- 
verting to  that  momentary  affliction,  visiting  you  through 
the  errors  of  your  own  servants,  and  the  overflowing 
spring-tides  of  your  fortunes.  These  afflictions,  though 
not  joyous  but  grievous,  are  but  for  a  moment,  and  the 
remedy  for  them  is  in  your  own  hands.  But  what  is 
the  condition  of  your  country, — resting  upon  foundations, 
if  you  retain  and  transmit  to  your  posterity  the  spirit  of 
your  fathers,  firm  as  the  everlasting  hills!  What,  look- 
ing beyond  the  mist  of  a  thickened  atmosphere,  fleeting 
as  the  wind,  and  w^hich  the  first  breath  of  a  zephyr  will 
dispel,  —  what  is  the  condition  of  your  country  ?  Is  a 
rapid  and  steady  increase  of  population,  an  index  to  the 
w^elfare  of  a  nation  7  Your  numbers  are  more  than  twice 
doubled  in  the  half  century  since  the  Constitution  was 
adopted  as  your  fundamental  law\  Would  those  of  you 
whose  theories  cling  more  closely  to  the  federative  ele- 
ment of  your  government,  prefer  the  multiplication  of 
States,  to  that  of  the  People,  as  the  standard  test  of 
prosperous  fortunes  1  The  number  of  your  free  and  in- 
dependent States  has  doubled  in  the  same  space  of  half 
a  century,  and  your  own  soil  is  yet  teeming  with  more. 
Is  extent  of  territory,  and  the  enlargement  of  borders,  a 
blessing  to  a  nation  7  And  are  you  not  surfeited  with 
the  aggrandizement  of  your  territory  ?  Instead  of  one 
milhon  of  square  miles,  have  you  not  more  than  two  1 
Are  not  Louisiana  and  both  the  Floridas  yours  ?  Instead 
of  sharing  with  Spain  and  Britain  the  contested  waters 
of  the  Mississippi,  have  you  not  stretched  beyond  them 


47 

westward,  bestrided  the  summits  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, and  planted  your  stripes  and  your  stars  on  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific  ocean  1     And,  as  if  this  were  not 
enough  to  fill  the  measure  of  your  greatness,  is  not  half 
Mexico  panting  for  admission  to  your  Union  7     Are  not 
the   islands  of  the   Western  Hemisphere  looking  with 
wistful  eyes  to  a  participation  of  your  happiness,  and  a 
promise  ol  your  protection  ?     Have  not  the  holders  of 
the  Isthmus   of  Panama    sent  messengers  of  friendly 
greeting  and  sohcitation  to  be  received  as  members  of 
your  confederation  ?     Is  not  the  most  imminent  of  your 
dangers  that  of  expanding  beyond  the  possibility  of  cohe- 
sion, even  under  one  federative  governm.ent; — and  of 
tainting  your  atmosphere  with  the  pestilence  of  exotic 
slavery  1 

Are  the  blessings  of  good  government  manifested  by 
the  enjoyment  of  liberty,  by  the  security  of  property,  by 
the  freedom  of  thought,  of  speech,  of  action,  pervading 
every  portion  of  the  community  ?  Appeal  to  your  own 
experience,  my  fellow  citizens ;  and,  after  answering  with- 
out hesitation  or  doubt,  afllrmatively,  all  these  enquiries, 
savethelast, — if,  when  you  come  to  them,  you  pause  before 
you  answer, — if,  within  the  last  five  or  seven  years  of  your 
history,  ungracious  recollections  of  untoward  events  crcAvd 
upon  your  memory,  and  grate  upon  the  feelings  appro- 
priate to  this  consecrated  day, — let  them  not  disturb  the 
serenity  of  your  enjoyments,  or  interrupt  the  harmiOny 
of  that  mutual  gratulation,  in  which  you  may  yet  all  cor- 
dially join.  But  fix  well  in  your  minds,  what  were  the 
principles  first  proclaimed  by  your  forefathers,  as  the 
only  foundations  of  lawful  government  upon  earth. — 
Postpone  the  conclusion,  of  their  appHcation  to  the  re- 
quirements of  your  own  duties,  till  to-morrow; — hut  then 
fail  not  to  remember  the  warnings,  while  reaping  in 
peace  and  pleasantness  tlie  rewards,  of  this  happy  day. 

And  this,  mv  fellow  citizens,  or  I  have  mistaken  the 


48 


motives  by  which  you  have  been  actuated,  is  the  pur- 
pose for  w^hich  you  are  here  assembled.  It  is  to  enjoy 
the  bounties  of  heaven  for  the  past,  and  to  prepare  for 
the  duties  of  the  future.  It  is  to  review  the  principles 
proclaimed  by  the  founders  of  your  empire  ;  to  examine 
what  has  been  their  operation  upon  your  own  destinies, 
and  upon  the  history  of  mankind  ;  to  scrutinize  with  an 
observing  eye,  and  a  cool,  deliberate  judgment,  your 
condition  at  this  day  ;  to  compare  it  with  that  of  your 
fathers  on  the  day  which  you  propose  to  commemorate ; 
and  to  discern  what  portion  of  their  principles  has  been 
retained  inviolate, — what  portion  of  them  heis  been  weak- 
ened, impaired,  or  abandoned  ;  and  what  portion  of  them 
it  is  your  first  of  duties  to  retain,  to  preserve,  to  redeem, 
to  transmit  to  your  offspring,  to  be  cherished,  maintain- 
ed, and  transmitted  to  their  posterity  of  unnumbered 
ages  to  come. 

We  have  consulted  the  records  of  the  past,  and  I 
have  appealed  to  your  consciousness  of  the  present ; 
and  what  is  the  sound,  w^hich  they  send  forth  to  all  the 
echoes  of  futurity, but  Union  ;  —  Union  as  one  People,  — 
Union  so  as  to  be  divided  by  no  act  whatever.  We  have 
a  sound  of  modern  days,  —  could  it  have  come  from  an 
American  voice  t  —  that  the  value  of  the  Union  is  to  be 
calculated  !  —  Calculated?  By  what  system  of  Arithme- 
tic ?  By  w^hat  rule  of  proportion  ?  Calculate  the  value 
of  maternal  tenderness  and  of  filial  affection ;  calculate 
the  value  of  nuptial  vow^s,  of  compassion  to  human 
suffering,  of  sym.pathy  with  afBietion^  of  piety  to  God, 
and  of  charity  to  man ;  calculate  the  value  of  all  that  is 
precious  to  the  heart,  and  all  that  is  binding  upoii  the 
soul ;  and  then  you  w^ill  have  the  elements  w^ith  w  hich 
to  calculate  the  value  of  the  Union.  But  if  cotton  or 
tobacco,  rocks  cr  ice,  metallic  money  or  mimic  paper, 
are  to  furnish  the  measure,  the  stamp  act  was  the  inven- 
tiin  of  a  calculating  statesman. 


49 


*''  Great  financier  !  stupendous  calculator  /" 
And  what  the  resuft  of  his  system  of  computation  was 
to  the  treasury  of  Great  Britain,  that  will  be  the  final 
settlement  of  every  member  of  this  community,  who  cal- 
culates, with  the  primary  numbers  of  State  sovereignty 
and  nullification,  the  value  of  the  Union. 

Our  government  is  a  comphcated  machine.    We  hold 
for  an  inviolable  first  principle,  that  the  People  are  the 
^s^ource  of  all  lawful  authority  upon  earth.     But  we  have 
one  People  to  be  governed  by  a  legislative  representa- 
tion of  fifteen  millions  of  souls,  and  twenty -six  Peoples, 
of  numbers  varying  from  less  than  one  hundred  thousand 
to  more  than  two  millions,  governed  for  their  internal 
police  by  legislative  and  executive  magistrates  of  their 
own    choice,    and  by    laws    of   their    own    enacting ; 
and  all  forming  in  the  aggregate  the  one  People,  as  which 
they  are  known  to  the  other  nations  of  the  civihzed 
world.     We  have  twenty-six   States,  with  governments 
administered  by  these  separate  Legislatures  and  Execu- 
tive Chiefs,  and  represented  by  equal  numbers  in  the 
general  Senate  of  the  nation.      This  organization  is  an 
anomaly  in  the  history  of  the  world.     It  is  that,  which 
distinguishes  us  from  all  other  nations  ancient  and  mod- 
trn  ;  from  the  simple  monarchies  and  republics  of  Eu- 
rope  ;  and  from  all  the  confederacies,  which  have  figured 
in  any  age  upon  the  face  of  the  globe.     The  seeds  oi 
this  complicated  machine,  were  all  sown  in  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  ;  and  their  fruits  can  never  be  erad- 
icated but  by  the  dissolution  of  the  Union.      The  calcu- 
lators of  the  value  of  the  Union,  who  would  palm^  upon 
jou,  in  the  place  pf  this  subhme  invention,  a  mere  clus- 
ter of  sovereign  confederated  States,  do  bulj^Qw  the  wind 
to  reap  the  whirlwind.      One  lamentable  evidence  of 
de«p  degeneracy  from  the  spirit  of  the  Declaration  of 


50 


Independence,  is  the  countenance,  which  has  been  oeea- 
sionally  given,  in  various  parts  of  the  Union,  to  this  doc- 
trine ;  but  it  is  consolatory  to  know  that,  whenever  it  has 
been  distinctly  disclosed  to  the  people,  it  has  been  re- 
jected by  them  with  pointed  reprobation.  It  has,  indeed, 
presented  itself  in  its  most  malignant  form  in  that  por- 
tion of  the  Union,  the  civil  institutions  of  w^hich  are  most 
infected  with  the  gangrene  of  slavery.      The  inconsis- 
tency of  the   institution   of  domestic  slavery   with   the 
principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  was  seen 
and  lamented  by  all  the  southern  patriots  of  the  Revolu- 
tion ;  by  no  one  with  deeper  and  more  unalterable  con- 
viction, than  by  the  author  of  the  Declaration  himself.    No 
charge  of  insincerity  or  hypocrisy  ^an  be  fairly  laid  to  their 
charge.     Never  from  their  Kps  w^as  heard  one  syllable  of 
attempt  to  justify  the  institution  of  slavery.     They  uni- 
versally considered  it  as  a  reproach  fastened  upon  them 
by  the  unnatural  step-mother  country,  and  they  saw  that 
before  the  principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independenae, 
slavery,  in  common  with  every  other  mode  of  oppres- 
sion, wT.s  destined  sooner  or  later  to  be  banished  from  the 
earth.     Such  was  the  undoubting  conviction  of  Jefferson 
to  his  dying  day.     In  the  Mem.oir  of  his  Life,  written  at 
the  age  of  seventy-seven,  he  gave  to  his  countrymen  the 
solemn  and  emphatic  warning,  that  the  day  was  not  dis- 
tant when  they  must  hear  and  adopt  the  general  eman- 
cipation of  their  slaves.     "Nothing  is  more  certainly 
written,"  said  he,  "  in  the  book  of  fate,  than  that  these 
people  are  to  be  free."  *     My  countrymen !  it  is  WTitten 
in  a  better  volume  than  the  book  of  fate ;  it  is  written  in 
the  laws  of  Nature  and  of  Nature's  God. 

We  are  now  told,  indeed,  by  the  learned  doctors  of  the 
nullification  school,  that  colour  operates  as  a  forfeiture  of 

*  Jefferson's  Writings,  vol.  1,  p.  40. 


61 

the  rights  of  human  nature  ;  that  a  dark  skin  turns  a  man 
into  a  chattel ;  that  crispy  hair  transforms  a  human  be- 
ing into  a  four-footed  beast.  The  master-priest  informs 
you,  that  slavery  is  consecrated  and  sanctified  by  the 
Holy  Scriptures  oii  the  old  and  new  Testament ;  that 
Ham  ^sls  the  father  of  Canaan,  and  that  all  his  postei'ity 
vver#  doomed  by  his  own  father  to  be  hewers  of  wooil 
and  drawers  oi^  water  to  the  descendants  of  Shem  and 
Japhet ;  that  the  native  Americans  of  African  descent 
are  the  children  of  Ham,  with  the  curse  of  Noah  still 
fastened  upon  them  ;  and  the  native  Americans  of  Europ- 
Qftn  descent  are  children  of  Japhet,  pure  Anglo-Saxon 
blood,  born  to  command,  ^nd  to  live  by  the  sweat  of  an- 
other's brow.  The  master-philosopher  teaches  you  that 
slavery  is  no  curse,  but  a  blessing  1 — that  Providence — 
Providence]  has  so  ordered  it  that  this  country  ^ould 
be  inhabited  by  two  races  of  men,  one  born  to  wield  the 
scourge,  and  the  other  to  bear  the  record  of  its  stripes 
upon  his  back,  one  to  earn  through  a  toilsome  hfe  the 
other's  bread,  and  to  feed  him  on  a  bed  of  roses  ;  that 
slavery  is  the  guardian  ^nd  promoter  of  wisdom  and 
virtue  ;  that  the  slave,  by  labouring  for  another's  eljoy- 
ment,  learns  disinterestedness,  and  humility,  and  to  melt 
with  tenderness  and  affection  for  his  master ;  that  the 
master,  nurtured,  clothed,  and  sheltered  by  another's 
toils,  learns  to  be  generous  and  grateful  to  the  slave,  and 
sometimes  to  feel  for  him  as  a  father  for  his  child ;  that, 
released  from  the  necessity  of  supplying  his  own  wants, 
he  acquires  opportunity  of  leisure  to  improve  his  mind, 
to  purify  his  heart,  to  cultivate  his  taste ;  that  he  has  time 
on  his  hands  to  plunge  into  the  depths  of  philosophy, 
and  to  soar  to  the  clear  empyrean  of  seraphic  morality. 
The  master-statesman,  —  ay,  the  statesman  in  the  land 
pf  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  —  in  the  halls  of  na- 


52 


tional  legislation,  with  the  muse  of  history  recording  his 
words  as  they  drop  from  his  lips, — with  the  colossal  fig- 
ure of  American  liberty,  leaning  on  a  column  entwined 
with  the  emblem  of  eternity,  over  his  head, — with  the 
forms  of  Washington  and  La  Fayette,  speaking  to  him 
from  the  canvass,^ — turns  to  the  image  of  the  fathe^of  hb 
country,,  and  forgetting  that  the  last  act  of  his  life  was  to 
emancipate  Ms  slaves,  to  bolster  the  cause  of  slav*ery 
says, —  That  man  was  a  slaveholder. 

My  countrymen  !  these  are  the  tenets  of  the  modern 
nullification,  school  Can  you  wonder  that  they  shrink 
from  the  light  of  free  discussion  %  That  they  skulk  from 
the  grasp  of  freedom  and  of  truth  ?  Is  there  among  you 
one  who  hears  me,  soHcitous  above  all  things  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union  so  truly  dear  to  us, — of  that 
Union,  proclaimed  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,,: — 
of  that  Union,  never  to  be  divided  by  any  act  whatever, — 
and  who  dreads  that  the  discussion  of  the  merits  of 
slavery  will  endanger  the  continuance  of  the  Union? 
Let  him  discard  his  terrors,  and  be  assured  that  they  are 
no  other  than  the  phantom  fears  of  nullification  ;  that 
while  doctrines  like  these  are  taught  in  her  schools  of 
philosophy,  preached  in  her  pulpits,  and  avowed  in  her 
legislative  councils,  the  free  and  unrestrained  discussion 
of  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  slavery,  far  from  endangering: 
the  union  of  these  States,  is  the  only  condition  upon 
w^hich  that  union  can  be  preserved  and  perpetuated. 
What !  Are  you  to  be  told  with  one  breath,  that  the  tran-^ 
scendent  glory  of  this  day  consists  in  the  proclamation 
that  all  lawful  government  is  founded  on  the  unalienable 
rights  of  man,  and  with  the  next  breath  that  you  must 
not  whisper  this  truth  to  the  winds,  lest  they  should 
taint  the  atmosphere  with  freedom,  and  kindle  the  flame 
of  insun^ection  ?     Are  you  to  bless  the  earth  beneath 


63 

your  feet,  because  she  spurns  the  footstep  of  a  slave, 
and  then  to  choke  the  utterance  of  your  voice,  lest  the 
sound  of  hberty  should  be  re-echoed  from  the  palmetto 
groves,  mingled  with  the  discordant  notes  of  disunion  ? 
No !  no !  Freedom  of  speech  is  the  only  safety  valve, 
which,  under  the  high  pressure  ot  slavery,  can  preserve 
your  political  boiler  from  a  fearlul  and  fatal  explosion. 
Let  it  be  admitted  that  slavery  is  an  institution  of  inter- 
nal police,  exclusively  subject  to  the  separate  jurisdic- 
tion of  the  States  where  it  is  chc^rished  as  a  blessing,  or 
tolerated  as  an  evil  as  yet  irremediable^  But  let  that 
slavery^  which  intrenches  herself  within  the  wdls  of  her 
own  impregnable  fortress,  not  sally  forth  to  conquest 
over  the  domain  of  freedom.  Intrude  not  beyond  the 
hallowed  bounds  of  oppression  ;  but  if  you  have  by  sol- 
emn compact  doomed  your  ears  to  hear  the  distant 
clanking  of  the  chain,  let  not  the  fetters  of  the  slave  be 
forged  afresh  upon  your  ow^n  soil ;  fai;  less  permit  them 
to  be  rivetted  upon  your  own  feet.  Quench  not  the 
spirit  of  freedom.  Let  it  go  forth,— not  in  the  panoply 
of  fleshly  wisdom,  but  with  the  promise  of  peace,  and 
the  voice  of  persuasion,  clad  in  the  whole  armour  of 
truth,— conquering  and  to  conquer. 

Friends  and  fellow  citizens !  I  speak  to  you  with  the 
voice  as  of  one  risen  from  the  dead.  Were  I  now,  as  I 
shortly  must  be,  cold  in  my  grave,  and  could  the  sepul- 
chre unbar  lis  gates,  and  open  to  me  a  passage  to  this 
de^k,  devoted  to  the  wor*?hip  of  almighty  God,  I  would 
repeat  the  question  with  which  this  discourse  w^as  in- 
troduced :  —  "  Why  are  you  assembled  in  this  place"  ?  — 
and  one  of  you  would  answer  me  for  all,  —  Because  the 
PecJaration  of  Independence,  with  the  voice  of  an  angel  /,- 
from  heaven,  "  put  to  his  mouth,  the  sounding  alchemy," 
^nd  proclaimed  universal  emancipation  upon  earth !     It 

5^ 


54 


is  not  the  separation  of  your  forefathers  from  their 
kindred  race  beyond  the  Atlantic  tide.  It  is  not  the 
union  of  thirteen  British  Colonies  into  one  People  and 
the  entrance  of  that  People  upon  the  theatre,  where  king- 
doms, and  empires,  and  nations  are  the  persons  of  the 
drama.  It  is  not  that  this  is  the  birth-day  of  the  North 
American  Union,  the  last  and  noblest  offspring  of  time. 
It  is  that  the  first  words  uttered  by  the  Genius  of  our 
country,  in  announcing  his  existence  to  the  world  of 
mankind,  was, —  Freedom  to  the  slave !  Liberty  to  the 
captives  i  Redemption !  redemption  forever  to  the  race 
of  man,,  from,  the  yoke  of  oppression  !  It  is  not  the  work 
of  a  day;  it  is  not  the  labour  of  an  age ;  it  is  not  the  con- 
summation of  a  century,  that  we  are  assenibled  to  com- 
memorate. It  is  the  emancipation  of  our  race.  Itiithe^ 
emancipation  of  man  from  the  thraldom'of  man ! 

And  is  this  the  language  of  enthusiasm  ?  The  di^eam  of 
a  distempered  fancy  ?  Is  it  not  rather  the  voice  of  in- 
spirationT  The  language  of  holy  writ  7  Why  is  it  that 
the  Scriptujpi^s^,  both  of  the  old  and  new  Covenant,  teaaii^ 
you  upon  every  page  to  look  forward  to  the  time,  whei> 
the  wolf  shall  dwell  with  the  lamb,  and  the  leopard  shall 
lie  down  Vv  ith  the  kid  7  Why  is  it  that  six  hundred  years 
before  the  birth  of  t;he  Redeemer,  the  subiimest  of  proph- 
ets, with  lips  touched  by  the  hallowed  fire  from  the  hand 
of  God,  spake  and  said, — "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  is 
upon  me ;  because  the  Lord  hath  anointed  me  to  preacli 
good  tidings  unto  the  meek  ;  he  hath  setit  me  to  bind  up 
the  broken  hearted^  to  proclaim  liber ly  to  the  captives, 
nnd  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound  T*^ 
And  why  is  it,  tlvdt,  at  the  first  dawn  of  the  fulfilment  of 
tliis  prophesy,  —  at  the  birth-day  of  the  Saviour  in  the 
lowest  condition  of  human  existence, --=  the  angel  of  the 

*  laaiah.  6 1  '   K 


55 

Lord  came  in  a  flood  of  supernatural  light  upon  the 
shepherds,  witnesses  of  the  scene  and  said, — Fear  not, 
for  behold  I  bring  you  good  tidings  of  great  joy  which 
5hall  be  to  all  people  ?  Why  is  it,  that  there  was  Sud- 
denly with  that  angel,  a  multitude  of  the  heavenly 
hosts,  praising  God,  and  saying, —  Glory  to  God  in 
the  highest,  and  on  earth  peace, — good  will  towai?d 
men?* 

What  are  the  good  tidings  of  great  joy,  which  shall  be 
to  all  people  ?  The  prophet  had  told  you  six  hundred 
years  before, — liberty  to  the  captives^ — the  opening  of  the 
prison  to  them  that  are  bound. — The  multitude  of  the 
heavenly  host  pronounced  the  conclusion,  to  be 
•houted  hereafter  by  the  universal  choir  of  all  intelligent 
created  beings, — Glory  to  God  in  the  highest;  and  on 
earth  peace,  —  good  will  toward  men. 

Fellow  citizens !  fellow  christians  !  fellow  men  !    Am 
I  speaking  to  believers  in  the  gospel  of  peace  ?   To  oth- 
ers, I  am  aware  that  the  capacities  of  man  for  self  or  so- 
cial improvement  are  subjects  of  distrust,  or  of  derision. 
The  sincere  believer  receives  the  rapturous  promises  of 
the  future  improvement  of  his  kind,  with  humble  hope 
smd  cheering  confidence  of  their  final  fulfilment.    He  re- 
ceives them  too,  with  the  admonition  of  God  to  his  con- 
science, to  contribute  himself,  by  all  the  aspirations  of  his 
heart,  and  all  the  faculties  of  his  soul,  to  their  accom- 
plishment.    Tell  not  him  of  impossibilities,  when  human 
improvement  is  the  theme.     Nothing  can  be  impossible, 
which  may  be  effected  by  human  will.     See  what  Aa,f 
been  efl^ected !     An  attentive  r<3ader  of  the  history  of 
mankind,  whether  in  the  words  of  inspiradon,  or  in  ths 
records  of  antiquity,  or  in  the  memory  of  his  own  expe- 
rience, must  perceive  that  the  gradual  improvement  of 

♦  Luke^  2,  9,   10,  13,   H, 


56 


his  own  condition  upon  earth  is  the   inextinguishable 
mark  of  distinction  between  the  animal  man,   and  every 
o^her  animated  being,  with  the  innumerable  multitudes  of 
which  every  element  of  this  sublunary  globe  is  peopled. 
And  yet,  from  the  earliest  records  of  time,  this  animal 
the  only  one  in  the  visible  creation,  who  preys  upon  his 
kind.     The  savage   man  destroys  and  devours  his  cap- 
tive  foe.     The  partially  civihzed  man  spares  his  hfe,  but 
makes  him  his  slave.     In  the   progress  of  civiUzation, 
both  the  life  and  liberty  of  the  enemy  vanquished  or  dis- 
armed are  spared  ;  ransoms  for  prisoners  are  given  and 
received.     Progressing  still  in   the   paths  to   perpeti*al 
peace,     exchanges   are     established,   and   restore   the 
prisoner  of  war  to  his  country  and  to  the  enjoyment   of 
all  his   rights  of  property   and   of  person.     A  custom, 
first  introduced  by  mutual  special  convention,  grows  into 
a  settled  rule  of  the  laws  of  nations,  that  persons  occu- 
pied exclusively  upon  the  arts  of  peace,  shall  with  their 
property  remain  wholly  unmolested  in  the  conflicts   of 
nations  by  arms.     We  ourselves  have  been   bound  by 
solemn  engagements  with  one  of  the  most  warlike  na- 
tions of  Europe,  to  observe  this  rule,  even  in  the  utmost 
extremes   of  war  ;   and  in  one   of  the    most   merciless 
periods  of  modern  times,  I  have  seen,  towards  the  close 
o^  the   last  century,  three  members   of  the  Society   of 
Friends,  with   Barclay's   Apology  and  Penn's   Maxinw^ 
m  their  hands,  pass,  peaceful  travellers  through  the  em- 
battled hosts  of  France    and  Britain,    unharmed,  and 
unmolested,  as  the  three  children  of  Israel  in  the  f^irnaee 
of  Nebuchadnezzar. 

War,  then,  by  the  common  consent  and  mere  wiH  of 
«  vilized  man,  has  not  only  been  divest#d  of  its  most  atro- 
cious cruelties,  but  for  multitudes,  growing  multitude* 
Cff  individuals,  has  already  been  and  is  abolished.     Why 


67 


should  it  not  be  abolished  for  all  ?  Let  it  be  impressed 
upon  the  heart  of  every  one  of  you, — impress  it  upon 
the  minds  of  your  children,  that  this,  total  aboUtion  of 
wai'  upon  earth,  is  an  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
man,  entirely  dependant  on  his  own  will.  He  cannot 
repeal  or  change  the  laws  of  physical  nature.  He  can- 
not redeem  Iwmself  from  ti>e  ills  that  flesh  is  heir  to ; 
but  the  ills  of  war  and  slavery  are  all  of  his  own  crea- 
tion. He  has  but  to  will,  and  he  effects  the  cessation  of 
them  altogether. 

The  improvements  in  the  condition  of  mankind  upon 
earth  have  been  achieved  from  time  to  time  by   slow 
progression,  sometimes  retarded,  by  long  stationary  pe- 
riods,  and   even   by   retrograde    movements     toward?? 
primidve   barbarism.       The   invention  of  the  alphabet 
and  of  printing  are  separated   from    each  other  by  an 
interval  of  more  than  three  thousand  years.     The  art  of 
navigation  loses  its  origin  in  the  darknessi  of  antiquity  ; 
but  the  polarity  of  the  magnet  was    yet   undiscovered 
in  the  tw^elfth  century  of  the    Chrisdan  era  ;   nor,  when 
discovered,  was  it  till  three  centuries  later,  that  it    dis- 
dosed  to  the  European  man,  the    continents   of  North 
and   South  America.     The   discovery  of  the   laws    of 
gravitadon,  and  the  still  more  recent  appUcadon  of  the 
power  of  steam,  have  made  large  additions  to  the  phys- 
ical powers  of  man ;  and  the  invendons  of  machinery, 
within  our  own  memory,  have  multiplied  a  thousand  fold 
the  capacities  of  improvement  practicable  by  the  agency 
of  a  ^gle  hand. 

It  is  surely  in  the  order  of  nature,  as  well  as  in  the  pro- 
mises of  inspiradon,  that  the  moral  improvement  in  ih« 
condition  of  man,  should  keep  pace  with  the  multiplica- 
tion of  his  physical  capacities,  comforts,  and  enjoyments. 
The  mind,  while  exerUng  its  energies  in  the  pursuit  of  bap- 


58 


piness  upon  matter,  cannot  remain  inactive  or  powerless 
to  operate  upon  itself.  The  mind  of  the  mariner,  float- 
ing upoa  the  ocean,  dives  to  the  bottom  of  the  deep,  and 
ascends  to  the  luminaries  of  the  skies.  The  useful  man- 
ufactures exercise  and  sharpen  the  ingenuity  of  the 
workman  ;  the  libej^al  sciences  absorb  the  silent  medi- 
tations of  the  student  ;  the  elegant  arts  sotten  the  tem- 
per and  refine  the  taste  of  the  artist ;  and  all  in  concert 
contribute  to  the  expansion  of  the  intellect  and  the  puri- 
fication of  the  moral  sense  of  our  species.  But  man  is 
a  gregarious  animal.  Assoc-iation  is  the  second  law  of 
his  nature,  as  self-preservation  is  the  first.  The  most 
pressing  want  of  association  is  government,  and  the  gov- 
e«*nm€nt  of  nature  is  the  ]  atriarchal  law,  the  authority 
oi'  the  parent  over  his  children.  With  the  division  of 
families  commences  the  conflict  of  interests.  AvaricH3 
and  ambition,  jealousy  and  envy,  take  possession  of  the 
human  heart  and  kindle  the  flames  of  war.  Then  it  is 
that  the  laws  of  Nature  become  perverted,  and  the  rul- 
ing passion  of  man  is  the  destruction  of  his  fellow-crea- 
ture, man.  This  is  the  origin  and  the  character  of  war, 
in  the  first  stages  of  human  societies.  But  war,  waged 
by  communities,  requires  a  leader  with  absolute  and  un- 
controuled  command  ;  and  hence  it  is  that  monarchy 
and  war  have  one  and  the  same  origin,  and  Nimrod,  the 
mighty  hunter  before  the  Lord,  was  the  first  king  and 
the  first  conqueror  upon  the  record  of  time. 

"  A  mighty  hunter,  and  hii  prey  was    man." 

In  process  of  time,  when  the  passions  of  hatred,  arid  fear, 
and  revenge,  have  been  glutted  with  the  destruction  of 
vanquished  enemies, —  when  mercy  claims  her  tribute 
from  the  satiated  yet  unsatisfied  heart,  and  cupidity 
whispers  that  the  fife  of  the  captive  may  be  turned  to 
useful  account  to  the  victor, — the  practice  of  sparing  hi* 


59 

life  on  condition  of  his  submission  to  perpetual  slavery 
was  introduced,  and  that  was  the  condition  of  the  Asiatic 
nations,  and  among  them  of  the  ki»gdoms  of  Israel  and 
of  Judah,  when  the  prophesies  of  Isaiah  were  delivered. 
Then  it  was  that  this  further  great  improvement  in  the 
condition  of  mankind  was  announced  by  the  burning  lips 
of  the  prophet.  Then  it  was  that  the  voice  oommis- 
sioned  from  Heaven  proclaimed  good  tidings  to  the 
meek,  mercy  to  the  afflicted,  liberty  to  the  captives, 
and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound. 

It  is  generally  admitted  by  Christians  of  all  denomin- 
ations, that  the  fulfilment  of  this  prophesy  commenced  at 
the  birth  of  the  Redeemer,  six  hundred  years  after  it 
was  promulgated.  That  it  did  so  commence  was  ex- 
pressly affirmed  by  Jesus  himself,  who,  on  his  appear- 
ance in  his  missionary  character  at  Nazareth,  we  are  told 
by  the  gospel  of  Luke,  went  into  the  synagogue  on  the 
sabbath-day,  and  st©od  up  to  read.  And  there  was 
delivered  to  him  the  book  ol  the  prophet  Isaiah.  And 
when  he  had  opened  the  book,  he  found  this  very  pas- 
sage which  I  have  cited.  "  The  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God 
is  upon  me;  because  the  Lord  hath  anointed  me  to 
preach  good  tidings  unto  the  meek ;  he  hath  sent  me  to 
biiid  up  the  broken  hearted ;  to  proclawi  liberty  to  the 
captives,  and  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are 
bound  !  And  he  closed  the  book,  and  gave  it  again  to 
the  minister,  and  sat  down."* 

This  was  the  deliberate  declaration  of  the  earthly  ob- 
ject of  his  mission.  He  merely  read  the  passage  from 
the  b©ok  of  Isaiah.  He  returned  the  book  to  the  min- 
ister, and,  without  application  of  what  he  had  read,  sat 
down.  But  that  passage  had  been  written  six  hundred 
years  before.  It  was  universally  understood  to  refer  to 
the  expected  Messiah.  With  what  astonishment  then 
must    the  worshippers  in  the  synagogue  of  Nazareth 

*  Luke,  4:  17,  18,20,21. 


60 

have  seen  him,  an  unknown  stranger,  in  the  prime  of 
manhood,  stand  up  to  read ;  on  receiving  the  book,  de- 
hberately  select  and  read  that  particular  passage  of  the 
prophet ;  and  without  another  word,  close  the  volume, 
return  it  to  the  minister,  and  sit  down  !  The  historian 
adds,  "  and  the  eyes  of  all  them  that  were  in  the  syna- 
gogue, w^ere  fastened  on  him.  And  he  began  to  say 
unto  them,  This  day  is  this  scripture  fulfilled  in  your 
ears'^ 

The  advent  of  the  Messiah,  so  long  expected,   was 
tlien  self- declared.    That  day  was  that  scripture  fulfilled 
in  their  ears.     They  had  heard  him,  at  once  reading 
from  the  book  of  the  prophet,  and  speaking  in  the  first 
person,  declaring  that  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  God  was 
upon  himself.     They  heard  him  give  a  reason  for  this 
effluence  of  the  Spirit  of  God  upon  him  ;  hecaitse  the 
Lord    had  anointed  him  to  preach  good  tidings  to  the 
meek.     Th&y  had  i\eard  him  expressly  affirm  that  the 
Lord  had  sent  him  to  bind  up  the  broken  hearted  ;  to 
proclaim  liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the 
prison  to  them  that  are  bound.       The  prophesy   will 
therefore  be  fulfilled,  not  only  in  the  ears,  but  in  the 
will  and  in  the  practice,  of  mankind.     But  how  many  • 
generations  of  men,  how  many  ages  of  time,  will  pass 
away    before    its    entire    and    final  fulfilment?     Alas  ! 
more  than  eighteen  hundred  years  have  passed  away 
since  the  fulfilment  of  the  t  scripture,  which  announced 
the  advent  of  the  Saviour,    and  the  blessed  object  of 
his  mission.     How  long — Oh!  how  long  will  it  be  be- 
fore that  object  itself  shall  be  accompUshed  ?     Not  yel 
are  w^e  permitted  to  go  out  with  joy,    and  to  be  led 
forth  with  peace.     Not  yet  shall  the  mountains  and  the 
hills  break  forth  before  us  into  singing,  and  all  the  trees 
of  the  field  clap  their  hands.      Not  yet  shall  the  fir- 
tree  Gome  up  instead  of  the  thorn,  nor  the  myrtle -tin^e 
instead  of   the  brier.      But  let  no  one  despair  of  tl>e 


61 

final  accomplishment  of  the  whole  prophesy.  Still 
ahdH  it  be  to  the  Lord  for  a  name,  for  an  everlasting 
sign  that  shall  not  be  cut  off.^'  The  prediction  of  the 
prophet,  the  self- declaration  of  the  Messiah,  and  his 
annunciation  of  the  objects  of  his  mission,  have  been 
and  are  fulfilled,  so  far  as  depended  upon  his  own 
agency.  He  declared  himself  anointed  to  preach  good 
tidings  to  the  meek  ;  and  faithfully  was  that  mission 
performed.  He  declared  himself  sent  to  bind  up  the 
broken  hearted  ;  and  this,  too,  how  faithfully  has  it  been 
performed !  Yes,  through  all  ages  since  his  appearance 
upon  earth,  he  has  preached,  and  yet  preaches,  good 
tidings  to  the  meek.  He  has  bound  up,  he  yet  binds 
up  the  broken  hearted.  ^  He  said  he  was  sent  to  pro- 
claim liberty  to  the  captives,  and  the  opening  of  the 
prison  doors  to  them  that  are  bound.  But  the  execu- 
tion of  that  promise  was  entrusted  to  the  will  of  man. 
Twenty  centuries  have  nearly  passed  away,  and  it  is  yet 
to  be  performed.  But  let  no  one  surrender  his  Chris- 
tian faith,  that  the  Lord  of  creation  will,  in  his  own  good 
time,  reaUze  a  declaration  made  in  his  name, — made  in 
words  such  as  were  never  uttered  by  the  uninspired  lips 
of  man, —  in  words  w^orthy  of  omnipotence.  The  pro- 
gress of  the  accomplishment  of  the  prophesy  is  slow.- 
It  has  baffled  the  hopes,  and  disappointed  the  wishes,  of 
generation  after  generation  of  men.  Yet,  observe  well 
the  history  of  the  human  family  since  the  birth  of  the 
Saviour,  and  you  will  see  great,  remarkable,  and  pro- 
gressive approximations  tow^ards  it.  Such  is  the  preva- 
lence, over  so  large  a  portion  of  the  race  of  man,  of  the 
doctrines  promulgated  by  Jesus  and  his  apostles, —  les- 
sons of  peace,  of  benevolence,  of  meekness,  of  brotherly 
love,  of  charity, —  all  utterly  incompatible  with  the  fero- 
cious spirit  of  slavery.  Such  is  the  total  extirpation  of 
the  licentious  and  romantic  religion  of  the  heathen  world. 

^  Isaiah,  55  :  V2,  If^. 


62 


Sueh  it  the  incontrovertible  decline  and  ap^^roaching 
dissolution  of  the  sensual  and  sanguinary  religion  of  Ma- 
hornet  Such  is  the  general  substitution  of  the  Chris- 
/tian  faith  for  the  Jewish  dispensadon  of  the  Levitical 
law.  Such  is  the  modern  system  of  the  European  law 
of  nations,  founded  upon  the  laws  of  Nature,  which  is 
gradually  reducing  the  intercourse  between  sovereign 
states  to  an  authoritative  code  of  international  law. 
Such  is  the  wider  and  wider  expansion  of  public  opinion, 
already  commensurate  with  the  faith  of  Christendom ; 
holding  emperors,  and  kings,  and  pontiffs,  and  republics, 
responsible  before  its  tribunals,  and  recalKng  them  from 
all  injustice  and  all  oppression  to  the  standard  maxims  of 
Christian  benevolence  and  mercy,  always  animated  with 
the  community  of  principles  promulgated  by  the  Gospel, 
and  armed  with  a  two  edged  sword,  more  rapid  and  con^ 
spuming  than  the  thunder  bolt,  by  the  invention  of  printing. 

But  of  all  the  events  tending  to  the  blessed  accom- 
plishment of  the  prophesy  so  often  repeated  in  the  book 
of  Isaiah,  and  re-proclaimed  by  the  multitude  of  the 
heavenly  host  at  the  birth  of  the  Saviour,  there  is  not 
one  that  can  claim,  since  the  propagation  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  a  tenth,  nay  a  hundredth  part  of  the  influence 
of  the  resolution,  adopted  on  the  second  day  of  July, 
1776,  and  promulgated  to  the  world,  in  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  on  the  fourth  of  that  month,  of  which 
this  is  the  sixty-first  anniversary.  And  to  prove  this 
has  been  the  theme  of  my  discourse. 

And  now,  friends  and  fellow  citizens,  what  are  the 
duties  thence  resulting  to  yourselves  1  Need  I  remind 
you  of  them  ?  You  feel  that  they  are  not  to  waste  in 
idle  festivity  the  hours  of  this  day, — to  your  fathers, 
when  they  issued  their  decree,  the  most  solemn  hours 
of  their  lives.  It  is  because  this  day  is  consecrated  to 
the  cause  of  human  liberty,  that  you  are  here  assembled  ^ 
and  if  the  connection  of  that  cause,  with  the  fulfilment 


63 

of  those  dear,  speGitis  predictions  of  the  greatest  of  the 
Hebrew  prophets,  re-announced  and  repeated  by  the 
unnumbered  voices  of  the  li?eavenly  host,  at  the  birth  of 
the  Saviour,  has  not  heretofore  been  traced  an4  exhibit- 
ed in  the  celebrations  of  this  day,  may  I  not  hope  for 
your  indulgence  in  presenting  to  you  a  new  ray  of  giory 
in  the  halo  that  surrounds  the  memory  of  the  day  o( 
your  national  independence  7  Yes ;  from  that  day  forth 
shall  the  nations  of  the  earth  hereafter  say,  wiih  the 
prophet, — "How  beautiful  Hpon  the  mountaiiis  are  the 
feet  of  him  that  bringeth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth 
peace  !"*  "  From  that  day  forth  shall  they  exclaim, 
Sing,  O  heavens,  and  be  joyful,  O  earth ;  and  break  forth 
into  singing,  O  mountains  !  for  the  Lord  hath  comforted 
his  people,  and  will  have  mercy  uppn  his  afflicted."t 
From  that  day  forth,  to  the  question, — "  Shall  the  prey  be 
taken  from  the  mighty,  or  the  lawful  captive  be  deUver- 
edi" — shall  be  returned  the  answer  of  the  prophet, — r«But 
thussaith  the  Lord,— Even  the  captives  of  the  mighty 
shall  be  taken  away,  and  the  prey  of  the  terrible  shall 
be  deliverj^;  for  I  will  contend  with  him  that  contends 
with  thee,  and  I  will  save  thy  children."—"  From  that 
•day  forth,  shall  they  say,  commenced  the  opening  of  the 
last  seal  of  prophetic  felicity  to  the  race  of  man  upon 
earth,  when  the  Lord  God  shall  judge  among  the  na- 
tions, and  shall  rebuke  many  people;  and  they  shall  beat 
dieir  swords  into  ploughs-hares,  and  their  spears  into 
pruning  hooks ;  nation  shall  not  lift  up  sword  against  na- 
tion, neither  shall  they  learn  war  any  more."t 

My  countrymen  !  I  w^ould  anxiously  desire,  and  with 
a  deep  sense  of  responsibility,  bearing  upon  myself  and 
upon  you,  to  speak  to  the  hearts  of  you  all  Are  there 
among  you  those,  doubtful  of  the  hopes  or  distrustful  of 
the  promises  of  the  Gospel  1  Are  there  among  you  tliose, 
who  disbelieve  them  altogether?     Bear  with  me  one 

*  Isaiah,  52  :  7.     t  Isaiah,  49  ;  13,  24,  25.     J  lefliah,  2,  4. 


64 

moment  longer.  Let  us  admit,  for  a  moment,  that  the 
prophesies  of  Isaiah  have  no  reference  to  the  advent  of 
the  Saviour  ; — let  us  admit  that  the  passage  in  the  Gos- 
pel of  Luke,  in  which  he  so  directly  makes  the  applica- 
tion of  this  particular  prophesy  to  himself,  is  an  interpola- 
tion ; — go  further,  and  if,  without  losing  your  reverence 
for  the  God  to  whom  your  fathers,  in  their  Declaration 
of  Independence,  made  their  appeal,  you  can  shake  off 
all  belief,  both  of  the  prophesies  and  revelations  of  the 
Scriptures ; — suppose  them  all  to  be  fables  of  human  in- 
vention ;  yet  say  with  me,  that  thousands  of  years  have 
passed  away  since  these  volumes  were  composed,  and 
have  been  believed  by  the  most  enlightened  of  mankind 
as  the  oracles  of  truth  ; — say,  that  they  contain  the  high 
and  cheering  promise,  as  from  the  voice  of  God  himself, 
of  that  specific  future  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
man,  which  consists  in  the  extirpation  of  slavery  and  war 
from  the  face  of  the  earth.  Sweep  from  the  pages  of 
history  all  the  testimonies  of  the  Scriptures,  and  believe 
no  more  in  the  prophesies  of  Isaiah,  than  in  those  of  the 
Cumaean  sybil ;  but  acknowledge  that  in  both  there  is 
shadowed  forth  a  future  improvement  in  the  condition  of 
our  race, — an  improvement  of  good  tidings  to  the  meek; 
of  comfort  to  the  broken  hearted  ;  of  dehverance  to  the 
captives ;  of  the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are 
bound.  Turn  then  your  faces  and  raise  your  hands  to 
God,  and  pray  that,  in  the  merciful  dispensations  of  his 
providence,  he  would  hasten  that  happy  time.  Turn  to 
yourselves,  and,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence  of 
your  fathers,  read  the  command  to  you,  by  the  unremit- 
ting exercise  of  your  highest  energies,  to  hasten,  your- 
selves, its  consummation ! 


APPENDIX 


On  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Adams  in  Newbury,  on  the  day  pre- 
vious to  the  celebration,  he  was  met  by  the  Committee  of 
Arrangements,  accompanied  by  a  large  body  of  the  citizens 
of  Newbury  and  Newburyport,  in  behalf  of  whom  he  was 
addressed  by  Samuel  T.  Deford,  Esq.  as  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Arrangements,  to  the  following  effect:  — 

Sir,  —  In  behalf  of  the  citizens  of  Newburyport,  and  at 
the  request,  also, of  the  municipal  authorities  of  the  ancient  town  of 
Newbury,  I  congratulate  you  on  your  safe  arrival  amongst  us. 
You  see,  in  the  glad  countenances  around  you,  a  proof  of  the  joy 
you  confer  upon  your  friends,  who  are  present  on  this  occasion, 
and  also  evidence  of  anticipated  happiness,  when  they  will  soon 
behold  you  surrounded  by  numerous  friends,  who  are  impatient 
to  greet  you  on  your  entrance  into  Newburyport. 

To  one,  who,  like  yourself,  has  resided  in  early  life  amid  these 
scenes,  and  those  which  you  are  now  again  about  to  witness  after 
an  absence  of  many  years,  —  the  recollection  of  incidents  that 
may  have  laid  their  impressions  too  deep  in  your  memory  even 
now  to  be  forgotten,  —  the  remembrance  of  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances, who  were  of  those  days,  but  who  now  arc  passed  away,  — 
the  joys  and  the  sorrows  that  may  crowd  upon  your  feelings  on 
recurring  to  that  period,  —  will  find  response  in  the  liearts  of 
many,   who,  as  I  have  said  before,  are  ready  to  greet  you- 


66 


Our  friends  may  die,  and  those  we  love  may  leave  us  ;  but  still 
our  fields  are  green  and  beautiful  ;  and  the  Old  Town  hills  will 
yet  endure  ;  and  the  Merrimack,  free  and  fair,  rolls  on  its  wont- 
ed course,  bearing  its  tribute  of  waters  to  the  Ocean,  as  you  may 
almost  see  but  yonder,  —  to  that  Ocean,  for  whose  rights  of  navi- 
gation and  for  whose  free  use  your  country  owes  you  so  much. 

I  again  present  to  you  the  cordial  welcome  of  your  numerous 
friends,  in  whose  behalf  I  act. 


To  which  IMr  Adams  replied    as  follows:  — 

Mr,  Chairman  —  Gentlemen  of  the  Committee  of  Ar- 
rangements: —  When  the  heart  is  full,  the  power  of  expression 
is  often  found  to  fail,  under  the  weight  of  feelings  too  intense  to 
find-  utterance  in  words.  So  it  is  with  me  at  this  moment  ;  and 
if  I  am  unable  to  express  to  you  the  sensibility  with  which  I  am 
affected,  by  the  kindness  \yith  which  the  citizens  of  Newbury- 
j3ort,  and  you  in  their  behalf,  are  pleased  to  welcome  me  to  this 
place,  endeared  to  me  by  the  indelible  impressions  of  early 
jouth,  but  from  which  the  destinies  of  a  long  and  wandering  life 
have  since  kept  me  many  years  removed,  I  pray  you  to  be  asaur- 
ed  that  it  is  not  the  deep  feeling  of  gratitude,  but  the  power  to 
express  it,  that  is  wanting. 

The  present  season  completes  fifty  years,  since  I  came  as  a 
student  at  law,  to  reside  for  a  term  of  three  years  at  Newbury- 
port.  The  beautiful  natural  scenery  around  me  is  fami4iar  to  my 
memory  now,  as  it  was  to  my  frequent  visitation  then, — The  face 
of  nature  has  so  little  changed,  that,  standing  on  this  spot,  I 
seem  to  fill  the  long  interval  of  time  since  elapsed,  as  were  it 
t)ut  one  day  ; — but  I  look  around  me,  and  the  faces  are  no  lon- 
ger the   same. 

Yet,  this  numerous  assemblage  of  citizens,  yon  cavalcade  of 
youthful  horsemen,  those  cheerful  and  lively  countenances  of 
children  before  us,  most  forcibly  remind  me  of  a  similar  scene, 
of  which,  during  my  residence  at  Newburyporl,  I  was  on  the 
same  spot  a  witness,  and  a  participatpr  ; — I  mean,  the  reception 
of  the  first  President  of  the  United  States,  upon  his  visit,  on  the 
first  year  of  his  Presidency,  to  this  place.  As  an  inhabitant  of 
Newbury  port,  I  was  one  of  those  who  then  greeted  him  with  a 
hearty  welcome  ;  and  nothing  is  more  deeply  fixed  in  my  memory 
.than  the  procession  of  children  of  both  sexes,  through  which  he 
passed,  upon  his  entrance  into  thp  town. 


67 


How  naturally  the  question  arises  to  my  mind,  where  are  now 
those  children  ?  And  how  afiecting  is  the  thought,  surely  more 
than  a  conjecture,  that  I  see  before  me  the  representatives  of 
many  of  them  in  their  grand-children,  now  in  my  eye.  Little  did 
I  then  imagine  that  the  day  would  come,  when  I  should  witness 
so  delightful  a  repetition  of  the  scene. 

Gentlemen,  I  can  but  repeat  the  request,  that  if  I  am  unable 
to  express,  in  adequate  language,  my  sense  of  the  kindness  of  the 
citizens  of  Newburyport  on  the  present  occasion,  you  would  at- 
tribute the  deficiency,  not  to  the  emotions  of  the  heart,  but  to 
the  utterance  of  them  in  words  ;  and  if,  as  you  have  been  pleased 
to  intimate,  it  has  been,  in  the  course  of  my  public  life,  in  any 
station  which  I  have  occupied,  my  good  fortune  to  render  to  the 
inhabitants  of  Newburyport,  or  to  any  one  of  them  any  accepta- 
ble service,  their  recollection  of  it  is  more  than  an  adequate  re- 
ward to  me,  and  could  my  most  earnest  wishes  be  realized,  they 
would  be  to  have  multiplied  such  services  an  hundred  and  a  thou- 
sand fold. 


Letter  addressed  by  Mr  Adams  to  the  Chairman  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  Arrangements: 

QuiNCY,  July  17th,  1837. 

Dear  Sir,  —  I  enclose  herewith  the  manuscript  of  the  Ora- 
tion, prepared  for  delivery  on  the  4th  instant,  at  Newburyport, 
in  compliance  with  the  invitation  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  town. 
The  parts  of  it,  omitted  in  the  delivery,  are  pencil  marked  in  the 
margin  ;  the  omissions  were  for  the  single  purpose  of  sparing  the 
time  and  patience  of  my  respected  auditory.  The  omitted  parts 
are  all  cumulative  illustrations  of  the  double  argument  of  the 
Discourse, —  the  principle  of  perpetual  Union,  inculcated  by  the 
Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  inseparable  connection  of 
the  doctrines  promulgated  by  that  paper,  with  the  progress  and 
final  consummation  of  the  ancient  prophesies  and  gospel  promises 
of  the  Christian  faith.  The  publication  of  the  whole  would  be 
most  satisfactory  to  me;  but  if  the  Committee  of  Arrangements 
would  prefer  the  publication  of  only  the  parts  delivered,  the  pen- 
cil marks  will  indicate  them  to  the  printer.  I  place  the  whole  at 
your  disposal. 


6S 


1  shall,  ibi  Ihe  remainder  of  my  days,  consider  this  visit  to 
Newburyport  as  one  of  the  most  memorable  incidents  of  my  life. 
The  mere  circumstance  of  revisiting,  after  an  interval  of  fifty 
years,  the  scene  of  my  abode,  at  the  time  of  life  at  once  of  the 
expansion  of  the  mind,  and  of  the  deepest  impressions  upon  the 
heart,  was  itself  inexpressibly  interesting.  The  kindness  and 
cordiality  of  your  reception,  so  congenial  to  that  which  I  had  ev- 
er experienced  from  the  forefathers  of  the  present  town,  linking, 
with  a  pleasing  and  a  tender  melancholy,  the  enjoyments  of  the 
passing  day  with  most  delightful  associations  of  a  departed  age, 
will  dwell  upon  my  meipory,  while  she  holds  a  seat  in  my  bosom. 
Circumstances  in  my  own  life  have  rendered  the  anniversary  of 
our  independence,  to  me,  a  day,  not  only  of  festive  enjoyment, 
but  of  awful  solemnity  ;  for  it  is  also  the  anniversary  of  my  fath- 
er's death.  Drawing,  myself,  so  rapidly  to  the  close^of  my  own 
career,  it  will  not  be  SMrpnrmo*  that  the  impressions,  under  which 
the  enclosed  discourse  was  written,  were  of  a  religious  character  ; 
and  entertaining  sincerely  the  opinion,  that  the  continual  appeal, 
in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  to  a  rule  o^  right  transcend- 
ing all  human  power,  and  that  the  principles  irresistibly  flowing 
from  the  rule  of  right,  or  of  eternal  justice,  must  lead  to  the  ex- 
tinction of  slavery   and  of  war  from  the    earth, 

I  deem  it  fortunate  to  have  had  the  opportunity  afforded  by 
this  invitation  of  the  inhabitants  of  Newburyport,  of  disclosing  to 
ray  countrymen,  so  shortly  before  I  shall  cease  to  be  with  them, 
not  only  my  own  adherence  to  the  principles  of  the  Declaration, 
but  my  firm  belief  that  the  hand  of  Providence  was  in  it,  pointing 
to  the  fulfilment  of  the  extatic  promises  of  the  Old  Testament, 
and  of  the  good  tidings  which  shall  be  to  all  people,  so  solemnly 
promised  in  the  New. 

With  the  renewed  expression  of  my  warmest  thanks  to  you, 
to  all  the  members  of  the  Committee  of  Arrangements,  and  to  all 
the  inhabitants  of  the  town,  I  remain,  dear  Sir,  your  friend  and 
servant,  JOHN  QUINCY  ADAMS. 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
ST-A^'"^ED  BELOW 

^,'74(R6900,^..;41o.  -rpg 

^  URN 

THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUt.  inc  r-;^,^^._TY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  50  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.00  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE.      ' 


J  (l  I  Itji'KV 


RETURN     CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
TO—i^     202  Main  Library 


LOAN  PERIOD  1 
HOME  USE 

2 

3 

4 

5 

6 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

1  -month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling  642-3405 

6-month  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing  books  to  Circulation  Desk 

Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  due  date 


D£C2li5B1 


S  STAMPED  BELOW 


deft; 


CIRCULATION 

SDfroNia 


JAN  1 6  280 


U.C.  BERKELEY 


Gaylamount 

Pamphlet 

Binder 

Gaylord  Bros..  Inc. 

Stockton,  Calif. 
T.  M.  Reg.  U.S.  Pat.  Off. 


I'C  50452 


^mi-" 


